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POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS 



1840 to 1872 



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COPYRIGHT 

By JAN3EN, McCLUKG & CO., 

A. D. 1883. 



PREFACE. 



The following chapters are devoted mainly to 
facts and incidents connected with the develop- 
ment of anti-slavery politics from the year 1840 to 
the close of the work of Reconstruction which 
followed the late civil war. Other topics, how- 
ever, are occasionally- noticed, while I have deemed 
it proper to state my own attitude and course of 
action respecting various public questions, and to 
refer more particularly to the political strifes of 
my own State. In doing this, I have spoken freely 
of conspicuous personalities in connection with 
their public action, or their peculiar relations to 
myself; but my aim has been to deal fairly and 
state only the truth, while striving to weave into 
my story some reminiscences of the men and 
events of by-gone times, which may interest the 
reader. In the endeavor to elucidate the orderly 
progress of anti-slavery opinions and their trans- 
lation into organized action, I have summarized 

(3) 



4 PREFACE. 

and re-stated many of the familiar facts of current 
American politics during the period embraced ; 
but I hope I have also made a slight contribution 
to the sources of history bearing upon a world- 
famous movement, touching which we should 
" gather up the fragments that nothing be lost." 

G. W. J. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN— THE BEGINNING OF 
ANTI-SLAVERY POLITICS. 

The "Hard-cider" Frolic of 1840 — The Issues — Swartwout and 
Political Corruption — The Demand for a Change — Character 
of Gen. Harrison — Personal Defamation — MasSyAieetings and 
Songs — Crushing Defeat of the Democrats-^First Appear- 
ance of the Slavery Issue in Politics — Pro-slavery Attitude of 
Harrison and Van Buren — Events favoring the Growth of 
Anti-slavery Opinion — Clay and Mendenhall —Texas' Annex- 
ation and John Tyler, ...... 1 1-29 

CHAPTER n. 

CAMPAIGN OF 1844— ANNEXATION AND SLAVERY. 

Tlie Nomination of Clay — His Position on the Slavery Ques- 
tion and Annexation — Van Buren's Letter to Hammet, and its 
Effect upon the South — His Repudiation, and the Nomina- 
tion of Polk — The Surprise of the Country — Unbounded Confi- 
dence of the Whigs — The Course of the New York Democrats 
-^The " Kane Letter " — Trouble among the Whigs on the 
Annexation Question — Fierceness of the Contest, and singu- 
lar Ability of the Leaders — The Effect of Clay's Defeat upon 
the Whigs — Causes of the Defeat — The Abolitionists, and 
the Abuse heaped upon them — Cassius M. Clay — Mr. Hoar's 
Mission to South Carolina — Election of John P. Hale — An- 
nexation, and War with Mexico — Polk's Message, and the 
Wilmot Proviso — The Oregon Question, and Alex. H. Ste- 
Pl^ens, 30-49 

(5) 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER III. 

CAMPAIGN OF 1848— ITS INCIDENTS AND RESULTS. 

Approach of another Presidential Campaign — Party Divisions 
threatened by the Wilmot Proviso — Nomination of Gen. Cass 
— The "Nicholson Letter" — Democratic Division in New 
York — Nomination of Gen. Taylor — Whig Divisions — Birth 
of the Free Soil Party — Buffalo Convention — Nomination of 
Van Buren and Adams — Difficulty of uniting on Van Buren 
— Incidents — Rev. Joshua Leavitt — Work of the Campaign 
— Webster and Free Soil — Greeley and Sew^ard — Abuse of 
Whig Bolters — Remarkable Results of the Canvass, 50-68 

CHAPTER IV. 

REMINISCENCES OF THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 

Novel Political Complications — Compromise Measures — First 
Election to Congress — Sketch of the " Immortal Nine " — The 
Speakership and Wm. J. Brown — Gen. Taylor and the Wil- 
mot Proviso — Slaveholding Bluster — Compromise Resolutions 
of Clay and Retreat of Northern Whigs — Visit to Gen. Tay- 
lor — To Mr. Clay — His Speeches — Webster's Seventh of 
March Speech — Calhoun — Speech on the Slavery Ques- 
tion, 69-89 

CHAPTER V. 

THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS (CONTINUED). 

Fracas between Col. Benton and Senator Foote — Character of Ben- 
ton — Death of Gen. Taylor — The Funeral — Defeat of the 
*< Omnibus Bill " — Its Triumph in Detail — Celebration of the 
Victory — " Lower Law " Sermons and '« Union- Saving" 
Meetings — Slaveholding Literature — Mischievous Legislation 
— Visit to Philadelphia and Boston — Futile Efforts to sup- 
press Agitation — Andrew Johnson and the Homestead Law — 
Effort to censure Mr. Webster — Political Morality in this 
Congress — Temperance — Jefferson Davis^John P. Hale — 
{/Thaddeus Stevens — Extracts from Speeches — Famous Men 
in both Houses — Free Soilers and their Vindication, 90-1 13 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE EVOLUTION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Pro-slavery Reaction — Indiana and Ohio — Race for Congress — 
Free Soil Gains in other States — National Convention at 
Cleveland — National Canvass of 1 85 2 — Nomination of Pierce 
and Scott, and the "finality" Platforms — Free Soil ■ National 
Convention — Nomination of Hale — Samuel Lewis — The 
Whig Canvass — Webster — Canvass of the Democrats — Re- 
turn of New York *« Barnburners " to the Party — The Free 
Soil Campaign — Stumping Kentucky with Clay — Rev. John 
G. Fee — Incidents — Mob Law in Indiana — Result of the 
Canvass — Ruin of the Whigs — Disheartening Facts — The 
other Side of the Picture, 1 14-132 

CHAPTER Vn. 

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY (CONTINUED). 

A Notable Fugitive Slave Case — Inauguration of Pierce-yRepeal 
of the Missouri Compromise — Its Effects upon the Parties — 
The Fiee Soil Position — Know-Nothingism — The Situation 
— First Steps in the Formation of the Republican Party — 
Movements of the Know-Nothings — Mistake of the Free 
Soilers— Anti-slavery Progress — Election of Banks as Speaker 
— Call for a Republican National Convention at Pittsburg — 
Organization of the Party-Vrhe Philadelphia Convention and 
its Platform — Nomination of Fremont — Know-Nothing and 
Whig Nominations — Democratic Nomination and Platfomi — 
The Grand Issue of the Campaign — The Democratic Canvass 
— The splendid Fight for Fremont — Triumpli of Buchanan 
— Its Causes and Results — The Teaching of Events, 133-157 

CHAPTER Vni. 

PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. 
The Dred Scott Decision — Struggle for Freedom in Kansas — 
Instructive Debates in Congress — Republican Gains in the 
Thirty-fifth Congress— The English Bill— Its Defeat and the 
Effi6ct — Defection of Douglas — Its Advantages and its Perils 
-VStrange Course of the New York Tribune and other Papers 



^ 8 CONTENTS. 

\ " —- 

— Republican Retreat in Indiana — Illinois Republicans stand 
firm, and hold the Party to its Position — Gains in the 
Thirty-sixth Coiiijress — Southern Barbarism and Extravagance 
— John Brown's Raid — Cuba and the Slave-trade — Oregon 
and Kansas — Aids to Anti-slavery Progress — The Speakership 
and Helper's book — Southern Insolence and Extravagance — 
Degradation of Douglas — Slave-code for the Territories — 
Outrages in the South — Campaign of i860 — Charleston Con- 
vention and Division of the Democrats — Madness of the 
Factions — Bell and Everett — Republican Convention and its 
Platform — Lincoln and Seward — Canvass of Douglas — 
Campaign for Lincoln — Conduct of Seward — Republican 
Concessions and slave-holding Madness, . . 158-180 

CHAPTER IX. 
THE NEW Administration and the war. 

Visit to Mr. Lincoln — Closing Months of Mr. Buchanan's Ad- 
ministration-^Efforts to avoid War — Character of Buchanan 
— Lincoln's Inauguration — His War Policy — The Grand Army 
of Office-seekers — The July Session of Congress — The At- 
mosphere of WashingtonABattle of Bull Run — Apologetic 
Resolve of Congress-V-First Confiscation Act — Gen. Fre- 
mont's Proclamation and its Effect — Its Revocation — Regular 
Session of Congress — Secretary Cameron — Committee on the 
Conduct of the War — Its Conference with the President and 
his Cabinet — Secretary Stanton and General McClellan — 
Order to march upon Manassas, . . . 181-207 

CHAPTER X. 

THE NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR 
(CONTINUED). 

The Wooden Guns — Conference with Secretary Stanton — His Re- 
lations to Lincoln-V-Strife between Radicalism and Conserv- 
atism-itPassage of the Homestead Law — Visit to the Presi- 
dent-V^The Confiscation Act and Rebel Land-owners — Gree- 
ley's "Pi-ayer of Twenty Millions," and Lincoln's Reply — 
Effort to disband the Republican Party — The Battle of Fred- 



COXTEXTS. 



ericksburg and General Burnside — The rroclamation of 
Emancipation — Visit to Mi". Lincoln — General Fremont — 
Report of the War Committee — Visit to Philadelphia and 
New York — Gerrit Smith — 1 he Morgan Raid, . 208-233 

CHAPTER XL 

INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. . 
Campaigning in Ohio — Attempted Repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
Law — Organized Movement in Favor of Chase for the Presi- 
dency — Confiscation of Rebel Lands — Fort Pillow, and the 
Treatment of Union Soldiers at Richmond — Mr. Lincoln's 
Letter to Hodges — Southern Homestead Bill, and Controversy 
with Mr. Mallory — Nomination of Andrew Johnson — En- 
forcement of Party Discipline — INIr. Lincoln's Change of 
Opinion as to Confiscation of Rebel Lands — Opposition to 
him in Congress — General Fremont and Montgomery Blair — 
Visit to City Point — Adoption of the XIII Constitutional 
Amendment — Trip to Richmond, and Incidents — Assassina- 
tion of the President — Inauguration of Johnson and An- 
nouncement of his Policy — Feeling toward Mr. Lincoln — 
Capitulation of Gen. Johnston, .... 234-259 

CHAPTER XH. 

RECONSTRUCTION AND SUFFRAGE— THE LAND 
QUESTION. 

Visit of Indianians to the President — Gov. ]\Iorton and Recon- 
struction — Report of Committee on the Conduct of the War — 
Discussion of Negro Suffrage and Incidents — Personal Matters 
— Suffrage in the District of Columbia — The Fourteenth Con- 
stitutional Amendment — Breach between the President and 
Congress — Blaine and Conkling — Land Bounties and the 
Homestead Law, ...... 260-280 

CIIAPIER XIII. 

MINERAL LANDS AND THE RIGHT OF PRE-EMPTION. 

The Lead and Copper Lands of the Northwest — The gold-bearing 
Regions of the Pacific, and their Disposition — A legislative 
Reminiscence — Mining Act of 1866, and how it was passed — 



lO CONTENTS. 

Its deplorable Failure, and its Lesson — Report of the Land 
Commission — The Right of Pre-emption, and the " Dred 
Scott Decision " of the Settlers, . . . 281-301 

CHAPTER XIV. 

RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT. 

Gov. Morton and his Scheme of Gerrymandering — The XIV 
Amendment — Hasty Reconstruction and the Territorial Plan — 
The Military Bill — Impeachment — An amusing Incident — 
Vote against Impeachment — The Vote reversed — The popular 
Feeling against the President — The Trial — Republican Intol- 
erance — Injustice to Senators and to Chief Justice Chase — 
Nomination of Gen. Grant — Re-uomination for Congress 
— Personal — Squabble of Place-hunters — XVI Amend- 
ment, 302-325 

CHAPTER XV. 

GRANT AND GREELEY. 

The new Cabinet — Seeds of Party Disaffection — Trip to California 
— Party Degeneracy — The liberal Republican Movement — Re- 
nomination of Grant — The Cincinnati Convention — Perplex- 
ities of the Situation — The Canvass for Greeley — Its Bitterness 
— Its peculiar Features — The Defeat — The Vindication of Lib- 
erals — Visit to Chase and Sumner — Death of Greeley, 326-352 

CHATER XVI. 

CONCLUDING NOTES. 

Party Changes caused by the Slavery Issue — Notable Men in Con- 
gress during the War — Sketches of prominent Men in the 
Senate and House — Scenes and Incidents — Butler and Bing- 
ham — Cox and Butler — Judge Kelley and Van Wyck — 
Lovejoy and Wickliffe — Washburne and Donnelly — Oakes 
Ames : — Abolitionism in Washington early in the War — 
Life at the Capital — The new Dispensation and its Prob- 
lems 353-374 

INDEX 375 



POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS 



CHAPTER I. 

THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN — THE BEGINNING OF 
ANTI-SLAVERY POLITICS. 

The *' hard- cider " frolic of 1840 — The issues — Swartwout and 
political corruption — The demand for a change — Character 
of Gen. Harrison — Personal defamation — Mass-meetings and 
songs — Crushing defeat of the Democrats — First appearance 
of the slavery issue in politics — Pro-slavery attitude of Har- 
rison and Van Buren — Events favoring the growth of anti- 
slavery opinion — Clay and Mendenhall —Texas annexation 
and John Tyler. 

Through the influence of early associations, I 
began my political life a Whig, casting my first 
presidential ballot for General Harrison, in 1840. 
I knew next to nothing of our party politics ; but 
in the matter of attending mass-meetings, singing 
Whig songs and drinking hard cider, I played a 
considerable part in the memorable campaign of 
that year. So far as ideas entered into my sup- 
port of the Whig candidate, I sim.ply regarded 
him as a poor man, whose home was a log cabin, 

(") 



POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



and who would in some way help the people 
through their scuffle with poverty and the " hard 
times"; while I was fully persuaded that Van 
Buren was not only a graceless aristocrat and a 
dandy, but a cunning conspirator, seeking the 
overthrow of his country's liberties by uniting the 
sword and the purse in his own clutches, as he 
was often painted on the party banners. In these 
impressions I was by no means singular. They 
filled the air, and seemed to be wafted on every 
breeze. Horace Greeley's famous campaign or- 
gan, "The Log Cabin," only gave them voice and 
fitting pictorial effect, and he frankly admitted in 
later years that his Whig appeals, with his music 
and wood engravings of General Harrison's battle 
scenes, were more " vivid " than *' sedately argu- 
mentative." No one will now seriously pretend 
that this was a campaign of ideas, or a struggle 
for political reform in any sense. It was a grand 
national frolic, in which the imprisoned mirth and 
fun of the people found such jubilant and uproar- 
ious expression that anything like calmness of 
judgment or real seriousness of purpose was out 
of the question in the Whig camp. 

As regards party issues. General Harrison, sin- 
gularly enough, was not a Wliig, but an old fash- 
ioned State-Rights Democrat of the Jeffersonian 
school. His letters to Harmar Denny and Sherrod 
Williams committed him to none of the dogmas 
which defined a Whig. No authentic utterance of 



THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN. 1 3 

his could be produced in which he had ever ex- 
pressed his agreement, with the Whig party on the 
questions of a protective tariff, internal improve- 
ments, or a national bank. There was very high 
Whig authority for saying that the bank question 
was not an issue of the canvass, while Van Buren's 
great measure for separating the currency from the 
banks became a law pending the Presidential strug- 
gle. In fact, it was because no proof of General 
Harrison's party orthodoxy could be found, that he 
was nominated ; and the Whig managers of the 
Harrisburg Convention felt obliged to sacrifice 
Henry Clay, which they did through the basest 
double-dealing and treachery, for the reason that 
his right angled character as a party leader would 
make him unavailable as a candidate. As to John 
Tyler, he was not a Whig in any sense. It is true 
that he had opposed the removal of the deposits, 
and voted against Benton's expunging resolutions, 
but on all the regular and recognized party issues 
he was fully committed as a Democrat, and was, 
moreover, a nullifier. The sole proof of his Whig- 
gery was the apocryphal statement that he wept 
when Clay failed to receive the nomination, while 
his political position was perfectly understood by 
the men who nominated him. There was one 
policy only on which they were perfectly agreed, 
and that was the policy of avowing no principles 
whatever ; and they tendered but one issue, and that 
was a chanee of the national administration. On 



14 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

this issue they were perfectly united and thorough- 
ly in earnest, and it was idle to deny that on their 
own showing the spoils alone divided them from 
the Democrats and inspired their zeal. 

The demand of the Whigs for a change was 
well-founded. Samuel Swartwout, the New York 
Collector of Customs, had disgraced the Govern- 
ment by his defalcations ; and, although he was a 
legacy of Mr. Van Buren's " illustrious predeces- 
sor," and had been " vindicated " by a Senate com- 
mittee composed chiefly of his political opponents, 
he was unquestionably a public swindler, and had 
found shelter under Mr. Van Buren's administra- 
tion. He was the most conspicuous public rascal 
of his time, but was far from being alone in his 
odious notoriety. The system of public plunder 
inaugurated by Jackson was in full blast, and an 
organized effort to reform it was the real need of 
the hour; but here v/as the weak point of the Whigs. 
They proceeded upon the perfectly gratuitous as- 
sumption that the shameless abuses against which 
they clamored would be thoroughly reformed 
should they come into power. They took it for 
granted that a change would be equivalent to a 
cure, and that the people would follow them in 
thus begging the very question on which some 
satisfactory assurance was reasonably required. 
They seemed totally unconscious of the fact that 
human nature is essentially the same in all parties, 
and that a mere change of men without any change 



THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN. \ 5 

of system would be fruitless. They laid down no 
programme looking to the reform of the civil serv- 
ice. They did not condemn it, and their sole 
panacea for the startling frauds and defalcations of 
Van Buren's administration was the imagined 
superior virtue and patriotism of the Whigs. In the 
light of this fact alone, it is impossible to account 
for the perfectly unbounded and irrepressible en- 
thusiasm which swept over the land during the 
campaign, and so signally routed the forces of 
Democracy. Something more than empty prom- 
ises and windy declamation was necessary, and that 
something, in an evil hour, was supplied by the 
Democrats themselves. 

General Harrison was a man of Revolutionary 
blood. He commanded the confidence of the 
chief Fathers of the Republic. He was a man of 
undoubted bravery, and had made a most honora- 
ble record, both as a soldier and a civilian, upon 
ample trial in both capacities. He was unquestion- 
ably honest aad patriotic, and the fact that he was 
a poor man, and a plain farmer of the West, could 
properly form no objection to his character or his 
fitness for the Presidency. But the Democratic 
orators and newspapers assailed him as an " imbe- 
cile." They called him a " dotard " and a ''granny." 
They said he had distinguished himself in war 
by running from the enemy. One Democratic 
journalist spoke of him, contemptuously, as a man 
who should be content with a loe cabin and a 



1 6 POLITICAL RECOLLECTLONS. 

barrel of hard cider, without aspiring to the Presi- 
dency. The efforts to belittle his merits and 
defile his good name became systematic, and 
degenerated into the most unpardonable per- 
sonal abuse and political defamation. This 
was exactly what the Whigs needed to supplement 
their lack of principles. It worked like a charm. 
It rallied the Whig masses like a grand battle-cry. 
Mass-meetings of the people, such as had never 
been dreamed of before, became the order of the 
day. The people took the work of politics into 
their own keeping, and the leaders became fol- 
lowers. The first monster meeting I attended was 
held on the Tippecanoe battle-ground, on the 29th 
and 30th of May. In order to attend it I rode on 
horseback through the mud and swamps one hun- 
dred and fifty miles ; but I considered myself amply 
compensated for the journey in what I saw and en- 
joyed. The gathering was simply immense ; and 
I remember that James Broo'ks, since conspicuous 
in our national politics, tried to address the multi- 
tude from the top of a huge log cabin. Large 
shipments of hard cider had been sent up the Wa- 
bash by steamer, and it was liberally dealt out to 
the people in gourds, as more appropriate and old- 
fashioned than glasses. The people seemed to be 
supremely happy, and their faces were so uniformly 
radiant with smiles that a man who was detected 
with' a serious countenance was at once suspected 
as an unrepentant " Loco-foco." But by far 



THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN. 1 7 

the largest meeting of the campaign was that 
held at Dayton, on the 12th day of September, 
where General Harrison spoke at length. He was 
the first " great man" I had seen, and I succeeded in 
getting quite near him; and, while gazing into his 
face with an awe which I have never since felt for 
any mortal, I was suddenly recalled from my rapt 
condition by the exit of my pocket-book. The 
number in attendance at this meeting was esti- 
mated at two hundred thousand, and I think it 
could not have been far out of the way. I am sure 
I have never seen it equaled, although I have wit- 
nessed many great meetings within the past forty 
years. The marked peculiarity of all the gather- 
ings of this campaign was a certain grotesque 
pomp and extravagance of representation suggest- 
ive of a grand carnival. The banners, devices and 
pictures were innumerable, while huge wagons 
were mounted with log cabins, cider barrels, canoes, 
miniature ships, and raccoons. 

But the most distinguishing feature of the cam- 
paign was its music. The spirit of song was 
everywhere, and made the whole land vocal. The 
campaign was set to music, and the song seriously 
threatened to drown the stump speech. Whig- 
gery was translated into a tune, and poured itself 
forth in doggerel rhymes which seemed to be born 
of the hour, and exactly suited to the crisis. I 
give a few specimens, partly from memory, and 



1 8 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

partly from " The Harrison and Log Cabin Song 
Book " of 1840, a copy of which is before me : 

What has caused the great commotion, motion, motion, 
Our country through? 
It is the ball a-roUing on, on, 
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too — Tippecanoe and Tyler too; 
And with them we'll beat little Van, Van, Van; 
Van is a used up man ; 
And with them we'll beat little Van. 

Like the rushing of mighty waters, waters, waters, 
On it will go, 
And in its course will clear the way 
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too — Tippecanoe and Tyler too ; 
And with them we'll beat little Van, Van, Van; 
Van is a used up man ; 
And with them we'll beat little Van. 

The famous " ball" alluded to in this song origi- 
nated with the Whigs of Allegheny County, Penn- 
sylvania, and was sent by them to a Mass Conven- 
tion held at Baltimore. It was ten or twelve feet 
in diameter, and upon the ends of it, on blue 
ground, were stars corresponding in number with 
the States of the Union. On its wide spaces of red 
and white stripes various inscriptions were made, 
including the following, which belongs to the 
poetry and music of the campaign: 

W^ilh heart and soul 
This ball we roll ; 
May times improve 
As on we move. 

This Democratic ball 
Set rolling first by Benton, 



THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN. 19 

Is on another track 

From that it first was sent. on. 

Farewell, dear Van, 
You're not our man ; 
To guide the ship, 
We'll try old Tip. 

The following, sung to the tune of "Old Rosin 
the Bow," was quite as popular : 

Come ye who, whatever betide her. 

To Freedom have sworn to be true, 
Prime up with a cup of hard cider, 

And drink to old Tippecanoe. 

On top I've a cask of as good, sir, ~ 

As man from the tap ever drew ; 
No poison to cut up your blood, sir, 

But liquor as pure as the dew. 

Parched corn men can't stand it much longer, 

Enough is as much as we'll bear ; 
With Tip at our head, in October, 

We'll tumble Van out of the chair. 

Then ho ! for March fourth, forty-one, boys. 
We'll shout till the heavens' arched blue 

Shall echo hard cider and fun, boys, 
Drink, drink to old Tippecanoe. 

The following kindred verses will be familiar to 
everybody who remembers the year 1840: 

Ye jolly young lads of Ohio, 

And all ye sick Vanocrats, too, 
Come out from among the foul party. 

And vote for old Tippecanoe. 

Good men from the Van jacks are flying, 
Which makes them look kinder askew, 



20 POLITICAL RECOLLECTLONS. 

For they see they are joining the standard 
With the hero of Tippecanoe. 

They say that he lived in a cabin, 

And lived on old cider, too; 
"Well, what if he did? I'm certain 

He's the hero of Tippecanoe. 

I give the following verses of one of the best, 
which used to be sung with tremendous effect : 

The times are bad, and want curing; 
They are getting past all enduring; 
Let us turn out Martin Van Buren, 

And put in old Tippecanoe. 

The best thing we can do, 

Is to put in old Tippecanoe. 

It's a business we all can take part in, 
So let us give notice to Martin 
That he must get ready for sartin', 

For we'll put in old Tippecanoe. 

The best thing we can do 

Is to put in old Tippecanoe. 

"We've had of their humbugs a plenty; 
For now all our pockets are empty ; 
We've a dollar now where we had twenty, 

So we'll put in old Tippecanoe. 

The best thing we can do, 

Is to put in old Tippecanoe. 

The following verses are perfectly character- 
istic : 

See the farmer to his meal 

Joyfully repair; 
Crackers, cheese and cider, too, 

A hard but homely fare. 



THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN. 2 1 

Martin to his breakfast comes 

At the hour of noon ; 
Sipping from a china cup, 

With a golden spoon. 

Martin's steeds impatient wait 

At the palace door; 
Outriders behind the coach 

And lackeys on before. 

After the State election in Maine, a new song 
appeared, which at once became a favorite, and 
from which I quote the following : 

And have you heard the news from Maine, 

And what old Maine can do ? 
She went hell-bent for Governor Kent, 

And Tippecanoe and Tyler too, 

And Tippecanoe and Tyler too. 

Such was this most remarkable Whig campaign, 
(vith its monster meetings and music, its infinite 
drolleries, its rollicking fun, and its strong flavor 
of political lunacy. As to the canvass of the Dem- 
ocrats, the story is soon told. In all points it was 
the reverse of a success. The attempt to manufact- 
ure enthusiasm failed signally. They had neither 
fun nor music in their service, and the attempt to 
secure them would have been completely over- 
whelmed by the flood on the other side. It was a 
melancholy struggle, and constantly made more 
so by the provoking enthusiasm and unbounded 
good humor of the Whigs. It ended as a cam- 
paign of despair, while its humiliating catastrophe 
must have awakened inexpressible disappointment 



22 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

and disgust both among the leaders and masses of 
the party. 

This picture of party pohtics, forty-three years 
ago, is not very flattering to our American pride, 
but it simply shows the working of Democratic 
institutions in dealing with the " raw material" of 
society and life at that time. The movement of 
1840 was necessarily transient and provisional, 
/while underneath its clatter and nonsense was a 
real issue. It was unrecognized by both parties, 
but it made its advent, and the men who pointed 
its way quietly served notice upon the country of 
their ulterior purposes. 

As long ago as the year 1 8 17, Charles Osborn 
had established an anti-slavery newspaper in Ohio, 
entitled "The Philanthropist," which was followed 
in 1 82 1 by the publication of Benjamin Lundy's 
" Genius of Universal Emancipation." In 1831 the 
uprising of slaves in Southampton County, Vir- 
ginia, under the lead of Nat. Turner, had startled 
the country and invited attention to the question of 
slavery. In the same year Garrison had estab- 
lished "The Liberator," and in 1835 was mobbed in 
Boston, and dragged through its streets with a rope 
about his neck. In 1837 Lovejoy had been mur- 
dered in Alton, Illinois, and his assassins compared 
by the Mayor of Boston to the patriots of the Revo- 
lution. In 1838 a pro- slavery mob had set fire to 
Pennsylvania Hall, in Philadelphia, and defied the 
city authorities in this service of slavery. Presi- 



rilE HARRISON CAMPAIGN. 23 

dent Jackson and Amos Kendall, his Postmaster 
General, had openly set the Constitution at de- 
fiance by justifying the rifling of the mails and the 
suppression of the circulation of anti-slavery news- 
papers in the South. The " gag " resolutions had 
been introduced in the House of Representatives in 
1836, which provoked the splendid fight of Adams, 
Giddings and Slade for the right of petition and 
the freedom of speech. Dr. Channing had pub- 
lished his prophetic letter to Henry Clay, on the 
annexation of Texas, in 1837, and awakened a pro- 
found interest in the slavery question on both 
sides of the Atlantic. We had been disgraced by 
two Florida wars, caused by the unconstitutional 
espousal of slavery by the General Government. 
President Van Buren had dishonored his adminis- 
tration and defied the moral sense of the civilized 
world by his efforts to prostitute our foreign policy 
to the service of slavery and the slave trade. In 
February, 1839, Henry Clay had made his famous 
speech on "Abolitionism," and thus recognized the 
bearing of the slavery question upon the presiden- 
tial election of the following year. The Abolition- 
ists had laid siege to the conscience and humanity 
of the people, and their moral appeals were to be a 
well-spring of life to the nation in its final struggle 
for self-preservation ; but as yet they had agreed 
upon no organized plan of action against the ag- 
gressions of an institution which threatened the 
overthrow of the Union and the end of Republican 



24 POLITICAL RECOLLECriONS. 

government. But now they were divided into two 
camps, the larger of which favored political action, 
organized as a party, and nominated, as its candi- 
date for President, James G. Birney, who received 
nearly seven thousand votes. 

This was a small beginning, but it was the begin- 
ning of the end. That slavery was to be put down 
without political action in a government carried 
on by the ballot was never a tenable proposition, 
and the inevitable work was at last inaugurated. 
It was done opportunely. Harrison and Van Buren 
were alike objectionable to anti-slavery men who 
understood their record. To choose between them 
was to betray the cause. Van Buren had attempt- 
ed to shelter the slave trade under the national 
flag. He had allied himself to the enemies of the 
right of petition and the freedom of debate, as the 
means of conciliating the South. He had taken 
sides with Jackson in his lawless interference 
with the mails at the bidding of slave-holders. In 
a word, he had fairly earned the description of " a 
Northern man with Southern principles." General 
Harrison, on the other hand, was a pro-slavery Vir- 
ginian. While Governor of Indiana Territory he 
had repeatedly sought the introduction of slavery 
into that region through the suspension of the or- 
dinance of 1787, which had forever dedicated it to 
freedom. He had taken sides with the South in 
1820 on the Missouri question. He had no sym- 
pathy with the struggle of Adams and his asso- 



THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN. 25 

ciates, against the gag and in favor of the right of 
petition, and regarded the discussion of the slavery 
question as unconstitutional. The first draft of 
his inaugural was so wantonly offensive to the anti- 
slavery Whigs who had aided in his election, that 
even Mr. Clay condemned it, and prevailed on the 
General to modify it. He had declared that " the 
schemes of the Abolitionists were fraught with hor- 
rors, upon which an incarnate devil only could 
look with approbation." With such candidates the 
hour had fairly struck for anti-slavery men, who be- 
lieved in the use of the ballot, to launch the grand 
movement which was finally to triumph over all 
opposition ; while to oppose this movement, how- 
ever honestly, was to encourage men to choose 
between parties equally untrustworthy, and by thus 
prolonging their rule to defeat all practical anti- 
slavery work. It was the singular mistake of the 
non-voting Abolitionists at this time, that, while 
they looked forward to political action as the ulti- 
mate result of their moral agitation, they vehement- 
ly opposed the formation of an anti-slavery political 
party, and either withheld their votes or divided 
them between these pro-slavery chieftains, though 
giving by far the larger proportion to the Whig 
candidate. 

From this time forward anti-slavery progress was 
more marked. The struggle over the right of 
petition in Congress continued, and was character- 
ized by a constantly increasing measure of fierce- 
ness on the part of the South. This is vividly 



26 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

depicted in a passage from the diary of Mr. Adams, 
in March, 1841, in which he declares that " The 
world, the flesh, and all the devils in hell are ar- 
rayed against any man who now, in this North 
American Union, shall dare to join the standard of 
Almighty God to put down the African slave trade; 
and what can I, upon the verge of my seventy- 
fourth birthday, with a shaking hand, a darkening 
eye, a drowsy brain, and with all my faculties drop- 
ping from me one by one as the teeth are dropping 
from my head, what can I do for the cause of God 
and man, for the progress of human emancipation, 
for the suppression of the African slave-trade i^ 
Yet my conscience presses me on; let me but die 
upon the breach." 

The celebrated trial of Mr. Adams the following 
year, for presenting a petition from the citizens of 
Haverhill, requesting Congress to take steps toward 
a peaceable dissolution of the Union, was a great 
national event, and his triumph gave a new impulse 
to the cause of freedom. The censure of Mr. Gid- 
dings which followed, for offering resolutions in 
the House embodying the simplest truisms respect- 
ing the relations of the General Government to 
slavery, and the elaborate State paper of Mr. 
Webster, which provoked these resolutions, in 
which he attempted to commit the Government to 
the protection of slavery on the high seas, in ac- 
cordance with the theories of Mr. Calhoun, still 
further kept alive the anti-slavery agitation, and 



THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN. 2/ 

awakened the interest of Northern men. A kindred 
aid, unwittingly rendered the anti-slavery cause, 
was the infamous diplomacy of General Cass, our 
Ambassador to France in 1842, in connection with 
the Quintuple Treaty for the suppression of the 
African slave trade. His monstrous effort to shield 
that trade under the flag of the United States was 
characterized by Mr. Adams as *' a compound of 
Yankee cunning, of Italian perfidy, and of French 
legerete, cemented by shameless profligacy un- 
paralleled in American diplomacy." In October, 
1842, Henry Clay himself became an anti-slavery 
agitator through his famous " Mendenhall Speech," 
at Richmond, Indiana. In response to a petition 
asking him to emancipate his slaves, he told the 
people " that whatever the law secures as property 
is property," and described his slaves as "being well 
fed and clad," and as looking *' sleek and hearty." 
" Go home, Mr. Mendenhall," said he, " and mind 
your own business, and leave other people to take 
care of theirs." Mr. Mendenhall was an anti-slav- 
ery Quaker; but Mr. Clay, while rebuking him 
severely, took pains to compliment the society it- 
self on its practically pro-slavery attitude, and thus 
stung into redoubled earnestness and zeal the men 
who had recently been driven out of it on account 
of their" abolitionism." On the day following this 
speech, which was the Sabbath, he was escorted to 
the yearly meeting by Elijah Coffin, its clerk, seated 
in a very conspicuous place, honored by every 



POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



mark of the most obsequious deference, and thus 
made the instrument of widening the breach al- 
ready formed in the society, while feeding the anti- 
slavery fires which he was so anxious to assuage. 

The work of agitation was still further kept alive 
by conflicts between the Northern and Southern 
States respecting the reclamation of fugitives from 
crime. Virginia had demanded of New York the 
surrender of three colored sailors who were 
charged with having aided a slave to escape. 
Governor Seward refused to deliver them up, for 
the reason that the Constitutional provision on the 
subject must be so understood as that the States 
would only be required to surrender fugitives 
accused of an offense considered a crime in the 
State called upon to make the surrender as well 
as in the State asking for it. Similar controversies 
occurred between other States, in all of which the 
South failed in her purpose. The anti-slavery spirit 
found further expression in 1843 in Massachusetts, 
whose Legislature resolved to move, through the 
Representatives of the State in Congress, an 
Amendment to the Constitution, basing representa- 
tion on the free population only of the States; 
which proposition gave rise to a most memorable 
debate in the national House of Representatives. 
It was in August of the same year that the voting 
Abolitionists held a National Convention in Buffalo, 
in which all the free States, except New Hamp- 
shire, were represented; while in the following 



THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN. 29 

year the Methodist Episcopal Church was rent in 
twain by the same unmanageable question, which 
had previously divided other ecclesiastical com- 
munions. 

In the meanwhile, the question of Texan annex- 
ation had been steadily advancing to the political 
front, and stirring the blood of the people both 
North and South. This ** robbery of a realm," as 
Dr. Channing had styled it, was the unalterable 
purpose and unquenchable desire of the slave- 
holding interest, and its accomplishment was to be 
secured by openly espousing the principle that the 
end justifies the means, and setting all conse- 
quences at defiance. This is exactly what the 
Government did. The diplomacy through which 
the plot was prosecuted was marked by a cun- 
ning, audacity, and perfidy, which, in these particu- 
lars, leave the administration of John Tyler unri- 
valled in its ugly pre-eminence, and form one of 
the blackest pages in the history of the Republic. 
The momentous question was now upon us ; and 
on the dawning of the year 1844, all parties saw 
that it was destined to be the overshadowing issue 
in the ensuing presidential campaign. 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1 844 ANNEXATION AND SLAVERY. 

The nomination of Clay — His position on the slavery question 
and annexation — Van Buren's letter to Hammet, and its effect 
upon the South — His repudiation, and the nomination of 
Polk — The surprise of the country — Unbounded confidence 
of the Whigs — The course of the New York Democrats — 
The "Kane Letter" — Trouble among the Whigs on the 
annexation question — Fierceness of the contest, and singular 
ability of the leaders — The effect of Clay's defeat upon the 
Whigs — Causes of the defeat — The Abolitionists, and the 
abuse heaped upon them — Cassius M. Clay — Mr. Hoar's 
mission to South Carolina — Election of John P. Hale — An- 
nexation and war with Mexico — Polk's message, and the 
Wilmot proviso — The Oregon question, and Alex. H. Ste- 
phens. 

The times were serious. The fun and frolic of 
1840 had borne no fruit, and that part of our his- 
tory could not be repeated. The campaign of 
1844 promised to be a struggle for principle; and 
among the Whigs all eyes were turned for a stand- 
ard bearer to Mr. Clay, who had been so shabbily 
treated four years before. He was unanimously 
nominated on the first of May, with Theodore 
Frelinghuysen as the candidate for Vice President. 
The party issues were not very sharply defined, 
but this was scarcely necessary with a candidate 

(30) 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844. 3 I 

who was proverbially regarded as himself " the 
embodiment of Whig principles." On the subject 
of annexation, he clearly defined his position in 
his letter of the 17th of April to the " National 
Intelligencer." He declared that annexation and 
war with Mexico were identical, and placed him- 
self squarely against it, except upon conditions 
specified, which would make the project of imme- 
diate annexation impossible. On the slavery ques- 
tion, he had not yet seriously offended the anti- 
slavery element in his own party, and was even 
trusted by some of the voting anti-slavery men. 
In a speech at Raleigh, in April of this year, he 
declared it to be " the duty of each State to sustain 
its own domestic institutions." He had publicly 
said that the General Government had nothing to 
do with slavery, save in the matters of taxation, 
representation, and the return of fugitive slaves. 
He had condemned the censure of Mr. Giddings 
in 1842 as an outrage, and indorsed the principles 
laid down in his tract, signed " Pacificus," on the 
relations of the Federal Government to slavery, 
and the rights and duties of the people of the free 
States. In his earlier years, he had been an out- 
spoken emancipationist, and had always frankly 
expressed his opinion that slavery was a great evil. 
These considerations, and especially his unequivo- 
cal utterances against the annexation scheme, were 
regarded as hopeful auguries of a thoroughly 
united party, and its triumph at the polls ; while 



32 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

Mr. Webster, always on the presidential anxious- 
seat, and carefully watching the signs of the polit- 
ical zodiac, now cordially lent his efforts to the 
Whig cause. 

With the Democracy, Mr. Van Buren was still a 
general favorite. His friends felt that the wrong 
done him in 1840 should now be righted, and a 
large majority of his party undoubtedly favored 
his renomination. But his famous letter to Mr. 
Hammet, of Mississippi, dated March 27th, on the 
annexation of Texas, placed a lion in his path. In 
this lengthy and elaborate document he committed 
himself against the project of immediate annexa- 
tion, and the effect was at once seen in the decid- 
edly unfriendly tone of Democratic opinion in the 
South. He had been faithful to the Slave oligar- 
chy in many things, but his failure in one was 
counted a breach of the whole law. By many acts 
of patient and dutiful service he had earned the 
gratitude of his Southern task-masters; but now, 
when driven to the wall, he mustered the courage 
to say, '* Thus far, no farther " ; and for this there 
was no forgiveness. General Jackson came to his 
rescue, but it was in vain. The Southern heart 
was set upon immediate annexation as the golden 
opportunity for rebuilding the endangered edifice 
of slavery, and Mr. Van Buren's talk about national 
obligations and the danger of a foreign war was 
treated as the idle wind. The Southern Democrats 
were bent upon his overthrow, and they went 



rilE CAMPAIGN OF 1844. 33 

about it in the Baltiaiore Convention of the 27th of 
May as if perfectly conscious of their power over 
the Northern wing of the party. They moved and 
carried the " two-thirds rule," which had been acted 
on in the National Convention of 1832, and after- 
ward in that of 1835, although this could not have 
been done without the votes of a majority of the 
convention, which was itself strongly for Van 
Buren. The rule was adopted by a considerable 
majority, the South being nearly unanimous in its 
favor, while the North largely '" supplied the men 
who handed Van Buren over to his enemies with a 
kiss." Even General Cass, the most gifted and 
accomplished dough- face in the Northern States, 
failed to receive a majority of the votes of the 
Convention on any ballot, and James K. Polk was 
finally nominated as the champion of immediate 
annexation, with George M. Dallas as the candi- 
date for Vice President. 

The nomination was a perfect surprise to the 
country, because Mr. Polk was wholly unknown 
to the people as a statesman. Like Governor 
Hayes, when nominated in 1876, he belonged to 
the " illustrious obscure." The astonished native 
who, on hearing the news, suddenly inquired of a 
bystander, " Who the devil is Polk t " simply echoed 
the common feeling, while his question provoked the 
general laughter of the Whigs. For a time the 
nomination was somewhat disappointing to the 
Democrats themselves; but they soon rallied, and 
3 



34 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

finally went into the canvass very earnestly, and 
with a united front. The Whigs began the cam- 
paign in high hopes, and in fact with unbounded 
confidence in their success. Their great captain 
was in command, and they took comfort in his 
favorite utterance that " truth is omnipotent, and 
public justice certain." To pit against him such 
a pigmy as Polk seemed to them a miserable 
burlesque, and they counted their triumiph as 
already perfectly assured. They claimed the ad- 
vantage on the question of annexation, and still 
more as to the tariff, since the act of 1 842 was 
popular, and Polk was known to be a free-trader of 
the Calhoun school. As the canvass proceeded, 
however, it became evident that the fight was to 
be fierce and bitter to the last degree, and that the 
issue, after all, was not so certain. Mr. Polk, 
notwithstanding his obscurity, was able to rouse 
the enthusiasm of the party, North and South, to a 
very remarkable degree. The annexation pill was 
swallowed by many Democrats whose support of 
him had been deemed morally impossible. In New 
York, where the opposition was strongest, leading 
Democrats, with AVilliam Cullen Bryant at their 
head, denounced the annexation scheme and repu- 
diated the paragraph of the National platform 
which favored it, and yet voted for Polk, who owed 
his nomination solely to the fact that he had com- 
mitted himself to the policy of immediate and un- 
conditional annexation, thus anticipating the sickly 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844. 35 

political morality of 1852, when so many men of re- 
pute tried in vain to save both their consciences and 
their party orthodoxy by " spitting wpon the plat- 
form and swallowing the candidate who stood upon 
it." History will have to record that the action of 
these New York Democrats saved the ticket in that 
State, and justly attaches to them the responsibility 
for the very evils to the country against which they 
so eloquentl}- warned their brethren. The power of 
the spoils came in as a tremendous make- weight, 
while the party lash was vigorously flourished, and 
the " independent voter" was as hateful to the party 
managers on both sides as we find him to-day. Those 
who refused to wear the party collar were branded 
by the " organs " as a " pestiferous and demoraliz- 
ing brood," who deserved " extermination." Dis- 
cipline was rigorously enforced, and made to take 
the place of argument. As regards the tariff ques- 
tion, Mr. Polk's letter to Judge Kane, of Philadel- 
phia, of the 19th of June, enabled his friends com- 
pletely to turn the tables on the Whigs of Penn- 
sylvania, where " Polk, Dallas, and the tariff of 
1842," was blazoned on the Democratic banners, and 
thousands of Democrats were actually made to be- 
lieve that Polk was even a better tariff man than 
Clay. This letter, committing its free-trade author 
to the principle of a revenue tariff, with "reasona- 
ble incidental protection to our home industries," 
was translated into German and printed in all the 
party papers ; and as a triumphant effort to make 



36 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the people believe a lie, and a masterpiece of polit- 
ical duplicity employed by a great party as a 
means of success, it had no precedent in American 
politics. In later times, however, it has been com- 
pletely eclipsed by the scheme of " tissue ballots," 
and other wholesale methods of balking the popular 
will in the South, by the successful effort to cheat 
the nation out of the right to choose its Chief 
Magistrate in 1876, and by the startling bribery of 
a great commonwealth four years later, now un- 
blushingly confessed by the party leaders who 
accomplished it. 

In the meantime the spirit of discontent began 
to manifest itself among the Whigs of the South 
respecting Mr. Clay's attitude on the question of 
annexation, and in a moment of weakness he 
wrote his unfortunate " Alabama letter," of the 
27th of July. In that letter he said : " I do not 
think that the subject of slavery ought to affect 
the question one way or the other. Whether 
Texas be independent or incorporated into the 
United States, I do not believe it will prolong or 
shorten the duration of that institution." He also 
declared that he would be ** glad to see it, without 
dishonor, without war, with the common consent 
of the Union, and upon just and fair terms." These 
words were perfectly chilling to his anti-slavery 
supporters, who were utterly opposed to annexa- 
tion on any terms, because the power of slavery 
would thus inevitably be extended and strength- 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844. 37 

ened in the United States. The letter was an ir- 
reparable mistake. It was a fresh example of his 
besetting tendency to mediate between opposing 
policies, and undoubtedly drove from his support 
many who would otherwise have followed the 
Whig banner to the end. 

But the Whigs kept up the fight. The issues 
were joined, and it was too late to change front. 
The real question in dispute was that of annexa- 
tion, and the election of Polk was certain to secure 
it, and to involve the nation in war. Clay was un- 
questionably right in saying that annexation and 
war were indentical ; and, although on the slavery 
question he might be feared as a compromiser, 
there was no reason to doubt that, if elected, he 
would vigorously resist the annexation scheme, 
except upon conditions already stated, which could 
not fail to defeat it as a present measure and avoid 
the calamities of war. I was inexpressibly disap- 
pointed and grieved by his letter ; but I agreed 
with Cassius M. Clay, that opposition to annex- 
ation except *' with the common consent of the 
Union" was practically absolute opposition, and I 
therefore kept up the fight in which I had enlisted 
in the beginning and made my first venture as a 
stump speaker. I cared little about the old party 
issues. I had outgrown the teaching of the Whigs 
on the subject of protection, and especially their 
pet dogma of '* the higher the duty the lower 
the price of the protected article." As to a na- 



38 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

tional bank, I followed Webster, who had pro- 
nounced it ** an obsolete idea"; and I totally repu- 
diated the land policy of the Whigs, having at that 
early day espoused the principle that the public 
lands should cea^ to be a source of revenue, and 
be granted in small homesteads to the landless 
poor for actual settlement and tillage. But on the 
subject of slavery, though it had escaped my at- 
tention in the hurrah of 1840, I was thoroughly 
aroused. This came of my Quaker training, the 
speeches of Adams and Giddings, the anti-slavery 
newspapers, and the writings of Dr. Channing, all 
of which I had been reading with profound inter- 
est since the Harrison Campaign. Being perfectly 
sure that annexation would lead to slavery-exten- 
sion and war, I thought it my clear and unhesitat- 
ing duty to resist the election of Polk with all my 
might. This I did to the end, and in doing it I 
employed substantially the same arguments on 
which I justified my separation from the Whigs 
four years later. 

The contest proceeded with its variety of charges 
and counter-charges, and was prosecuted on both 
sides with extraordinary vigor and zeal in every 
part of the Union. I think it was everywhere and 
pre-eminently a struggle between the men of brains 
on either side. I am quite sure this was true in 
my own State. Indiana was remarkable at that 
time, not only for her gifted stump orators, but for 
her men of real calibre and power of argument. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844. 39 

On the side of the Whigs were such men as OH- 
ver H. Smith, Joseph G. Marshall, George G. 
Dunn, Joseph L. White, Richard W. Thompson, 
Caleb B Smith, George H. Proffit, Henry S. Lane, 
Samuel W. Parker, and James H. Cravens. The 
Democrats could boast of Tilghman A. Howard, 
James Whitcomb, Edward A. Hannegan, William 
W. Wick, John Law, Joseph A. Wright, Jesse D. 
Bright, John W. Davis, Thomas J. Henly, and 
John L. Robinson. The best talking talent of the 
nation was called into service, including such 
Democratic giants as Thomas H. Benton, William 
Allen, Silas Wright, Robert J. Walker, James 
Buchanan, and Daniel S. Dickenson ; and such 
Whigs to match them as Daniel Webster, Rufus 
Choate, Thomas F. Marshall, Thomas Corwin, S. 
S. Prentiss, Thomas Ewmg, and W. C. Preston. 
The fight was more ably if not more hotly con- 
tested than any preceding national struggle, 
raging and blazing- everywhere, while the forces 
marshaled against each other were more evenly 
balanced than in any contest since the year 
1800. The race was so close that the result 
hung in agonizing doubt and suspense up to the 
evening following the election. Party feeling rose 
to a frenzy, and the consuming desire of the Whigs 
to crown their great Chief ,with the laurels of 
victory was only equaled by that of the Democrats 
for the triumph of the unknown Tennessean whose 



40 roLiriCAL recollections. 

nomination had provoked the aggravating laughter 
of the enemy in the beginning. 

It is not possible to describe the effect of Mr. 
Clay's defeat upon the Whigs. It was wholly 
unexpected, and Mr. Clay especially remained 
sanguine as to his triumph up to the last moment. 
When the result became known, it was accepted 
by his friends as a great national calamity and 
humiliation. It shocked and paralyzed them like 
a great tragedy. I remember very vividly one 
zealous Whig, afterward a prominent Free Soiler 
and Republican leader, who was so utterly over- 
whelmed that for a week he lost the power of 
sleep, and gave himself up to political sorrow and 
despair. Letters of the most heart-felt condolence 
poured in upon Mr. Clay from all quarters, and 
the Whigs everywhere seemed to feel that no 
statesman of real eminence could ever be made 
President. They insisted that an overwhelming 
preponderance of the virtue, intelligence and re- 
spectability of the country had supported their 
candidate, while the larger element of ignorance 
and •* unwashed " humanity, including our foreign- 
born population, gave the victory to Mr. Polk. 
Their faith in republican government was fearfully 
shaken, while the causes of the great disaster were 
of course sought out, and made the text of hasty 
but copious moralizings. One of these causes 
was the Kane letter, which undoubtedly gave Mr. 
Polk the State of Pennsylvania. Another was the 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844. 4 1 

baneful influence of " nativism," which had just 
broken out in the great cities, and been made the 
occasion of such frightful riot and bloodshed in 
Philadelphia as to alarm our foreign-born citizens, 
and throw them almost unanimously against the 
Whigs. The Abolitionists declared that Mr. 
Clay's defeat was caused by his trimming on the 
annexation question, which drew from him a 
sufficient number of conscientious anti-slavery men 
to have turned the tide in his favor. The famous 
Plaquemine frauds in Louisiana unquestionably 
lost that State to Mr. Clay. This infamous con- 
spiracy to strangle the voice of a sovereign State 
was engineered by John Slidell, and it consisted 
of the shipment from New Orleans to Plaquemine 
of two steamboats loaded with roughs and villains, 
whose illegal votes were sufficient to turn the 
State over to the Democrats. 

But the cause of Mr. Clay's defeat which was 
dwelt upon with most emphasis and feeling was 
the action of the Liberty party. Birney, its candi- 
date for President, received 66,304 votes, and these, 
it was alleged, came chiefly from the Whig party. 
The vote of these men in New York and Michigan 
was greater than the Democratic majority, so that 
if they had united with the Whigs, Clay would 
have been elected in spite of all other opposition. 
Mr. Polk's plurality over Clay in New York was 
only 5,106, while Birney received in that State 
15,812; and Horace Greeley insisted that if only 



42 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

one third of this vote had been cast for Mr. Clay, 
he would have been President. The feeling of the 
Whigs against these anti-slavery men was bitter 
and damnatory to the last degree. The Plaque- 
mine frauds, the Kane letter, and everything else, 
were forgotten in the general and abounding wrath 
against these ** fanatics," who were denounced as 
the betrayers of their country and of the cause 
which a very great and critical opportunity had 
placed it in their power to save. "The Abolition- 
ists deserve to be damned, and they will be," said 
a zealous Whig to an anti-slavery Quaker ; and 
this was simply the expression of the prevailing 
feeling at the time, at least in the West. 

But this treatment of the Abolitionists was man- 
ifestly unjust. Their organization four years be- 
fore was neither untimely nor unnecessary, but be- 
longed to the inevitable logic of a great and domi- 
nating idea. A party was absolutely necessary 
which should make this idea paramount, and utterly 
refuse to be drawn away from it by any party di- 
visions upon subsidiary questions. It should be 
remembered, too, that the Liberty party was made 
up of Democratic as well as Whig deserters, and 
that if it had disbanded, or had not been formed, 
the result of this election would have been the 
same. The statement of Mr. Greeley, that one 
third of Birney's vote in New York would have 
elected Clay, was unwarranted, unless he was able 
to show what would have been the action of the 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844. 43 

other two thirds. In justice to these Abolitionists 
it should also be remembered and recorded, to say 
the very least, that Mr. Clay himself divided with 
them the responsibility of his defeat by his Ala- 
bama letter, and that now, in the clear perspective 
of history, they stand vindicated against their 
Whig assailants, whose fevered brains and party 
intolerance blinded their eyes to the truth. Doubt- 
less there were honest differences of opinion as 
to the best method of serving the anti-slavery cause 
in this exasperating campaign, and these differ- 
ences may still survive as an inheritance ; but abo- 
litionism, as a working force in our politics, had to 
have a beginning, and no man who cherishes the 
memory of J:he old Free Soil party, and of the 
larger one to which it gave birth, will withhold 
the meed of his praise from the heroic little band 
of sappers and miners who blazed the way for the 
armies which were to follow, and whose voices, 
though but faintly heard in the whirlwind of 1 840, 
were made significantly audible in 1844. Although 
they were everywhere totally misunderstood and 
grossly misrepresented, they clearly comprehended 
their work and courageously entered upon its per- 
formance. Their political creed was substantially 
identical with that of the Free Soilers of 1848 
and the Republicans of 1856 and i860. They 
were anything but political fanatics, and history 
will record that their sole offense was the espousal 
of the truth in advance of the multitude, which 
slowly and finally followed in their footsteps. 



44 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

But the war against slavery was not at all inter- 
mitted by the victory of the Democrats. Events 
are schoolmasters, and this triumph only quickened 
their march toward the final catastrophe. Cassius 
M. Clay, who had espoused the Whig cause in this 
canvass with great vigor and zeal, and on anti- 
slavery grounds, re-enlisted in the battle against 
slavery, and resolved to prosecute it by new 
methods. He had been sorely tried by Mr. Clay's 
Alabama letter and the Whig defeat, but he was 
now armed with fresh courage, and resolved to 
*' carry the war into Africa " by the establishment of 
his newspaper, the " True American," in Lexington, 
in his own State. His arraignment of slavery was 
so eloquent and masterly that a large meeting of 
slave-holders appointed a committee to wait on 
him, and request the discontinuance of his paper. 
His reply was : " Go, tell your secret conclave of 
cowardly assassins that Cassius M. Clay knows 
his rights, and how to defend them." These words 
thrilled all lovers of liberty, and sounded to them 
like a trumpet call to battle. Another fruitful 
event was the effort of Massachusetts, in the fall of 
this year, to protect her colored seamen in the 
ports of Charleston and New Orleans, where they 
were seized on merchant ships and sold into 
slavery under local police regulations. When Mr. 
Hoar visited Charleston as the accredited agent of 
his State for the purpose of taking measures to 
test the constitutionality of these regulations, the 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844. 45 

Legislature of South Carolina, by a vote of one 
hundred and nineteen against one, passed a series 
of outrageous resolutions culminating in a request 
to the Governor to expel him from the State as a 
confessed disturber of the peace. He was obliged 
summarily to depart, as the only means of escap-' 
ing the vengeance of the mob. This open and 
insolent defiance of the national authority could not 
fail to strengthen anti-slavery opinion in the North- 
ern States. The same end was served by an unex- 
pected movement in New Hampshire. This State, 
like Massachusetts and Vermont, had taken ground 
against annexation, but it wheeled into line after 
Polk was nominated. John P. Hale, however, then 
a Democratic member of Congress from that State, 
refused to follow his party, and for this reason, after 
he had been formally declared its choice for re- 
election, he was thrown overboard, and another 
candidate nominated. No election, however, was 
effected, and his seat remained vacant during the 
29th Congress, but he obtained a seat in the Legis- 
lature in 1846, and the following year was chosen 
United States Senator, while Amos Tuck, after- 
ward a prominent Free Soiler, was elected to the 
Lower House of Congress. These were pregnant 
events, and especially the triumph of Hale, who 
became a very formidable champion of freedom, 
and a thorn in the side of slavery till it perished. 

In the meantime the hunger for immediate an- 
nexation had been whetted by the election of Mr. 



46 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

Polk, and its champions hurried up their work, and 
pushed it by methods in open disregard of the Con- 
stitution and of our treaty obligations with Mexico. 
In the last hours of the administration of John 
Tyler the atrocious plot received its finishing 
touch and the Executive approval, and, in the apt 
words of the ablest and fairest historian of the 
transaction, **the bridal dress in which Calhoun had 
led the beloved of the slaveocracy to the Union was 
the torn and tattered Constitution of the United 
States." War with Mexico, as prophesied by the 
Whigs, speedily followed. As early as August, 
1845, General Taylor was ordered by President 
Polk to advance to a position on the Nueces. In 
March of the following year, in pursuance of further 
orders, his army again advanced, taking its position 
on the east bank of the Rio Grande, and, of course, 
on the soil of Mexico. Hostilities naturally fol- 
lowed, and after two battles the President, in his 
message to Congress, declared that " American 
blood has been shed on American soil." This 
robust Executive falsehood, with which the slave 
power compelled him to face the civilized world, 
must always hold a very high rank in the annals of 
public audacity and crime. It is what Thomas 
Carlyle might have styled " the second power of a 
lie," and is only rivaled by the parallel falsehood of 
Congress in declaring that " by the act of the Re- 
public of Mexico a state of war exists between that 
Government and the United States." In the mes- 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844. 47 

sage of the President referred to, he recommended 
that a considerable sum of money be placed at his 
disposal for the purpose of negotiating a peace, and 
it was on the consideration of this message that 
David Wilmot fortunately obtained the floor, and 
moved his memorable proviso for the interdiction 
of slavery in any territory which might be wrested 
from Mexico by our arms. This was the session 
of Congress for 1846-47, and the proposition 
passed the House with great unanimity as to 
Northern members. At the following session 
of Congress, on the 28th of February, 1848, the 
proviso again came before the House, and the 
motion to lay it on the table failed, all the Whigs 
and a large majority of the Democrats from the free 
IStates voting in the negative. It passed the House 
on the 13th of December following, on a similar 
division of parties and sections, but the Senate 
refused to concur, and the Thirtieth Congress ad- 
journed without making any provision whatever 
for the organization or government of our recently 
acquired Territories. 

It is worth while to notice in passing that on the 
first introduction of the Wilmot proviso, in August, 
1846, General Cass was decidedly in its favor, and 
regretted that it had been talked to death by the long 
speech of John Davis ; but on the 24th of Decem- 
ber, 1847, he wrote his famous "Nicholson letter," 
proclaiming his gospel of " popular sovereignty " 
in the Territories, which proved the seed-plot of 



48 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

immeasurable national trouble and disaster. " I 
am strongly impressed with the opinion," said he, 
" that a great change is going on in the public 
mind on this subject — in my own mind as well as 
others " ; and he had before declared, on the 
19th of February, that the passage of the Wilmot 
proviso " would be death to the war, death to all 
hope of getting an acre of territory, death to the 
administration, and death to the Democratic party." 
This was thoroughly characteristic, and in perfect 
harmony with his action, already referred to, re- 
specting the Quintuple treaty; but it showed how 
the political waters were being troubled by the 
slavery question, and how impossible it was to ac- 
commodate the growing anti-slavery feeling of the 
country by any shallow expedients. 

But another conspiracy against freedom was now 
hatched; and if the Senate had strangled the Wil- 
mot proviso, it was gratifying to find the House 
ready to strangle this monster of senatorial birth. 
I allude to the now almost forgotten " Clayton 
Compromise," which passed the Senate by a de- 
cided majority on the 26th of July. By submit- 
ting the whole question of slavery in all our Ter- 
ritories to the Supreme Court of the United States, 
as then constituted, it would almost certainly have 
spawned the curse in all of them, including Oregon^ 
which had long been exposed to peril and massa- 
cre by the reckless opposition of our slave-masters 
to a government there without the recognition of 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1S44. 49 



slavery. The defeat of this nefarious proposition, 
which was happily followed by the passage of a 
bill giving Oregon a territorial government, is 
largely due to Alexander H. Stephens, whose mo- 
tion to lay it on the table in the House prevailed 
by a small majority. In this action he had the 
courage to separate himself from the great body 
of the leading men of his own section ; but in doing 
so he was prompted by his supreme devotion to 
slavery. This he has since denied and labored to 
explain in his private correspondence and published 
works, but the record is fatally against him. He 
v/as unwilling to trust the interests of the South in 
the hands of the Supreme Court, and his speech of 
August 7th, in the House of Representatives, in 
defense of his motion, gave very plausible rea- 
sons for his apprehensions ; but the Dred Scott 
decision of a few years later showed how com- 
pletely he misjudged that tribunal, and how oppor- 
tunely his blindness came to the rescue of freedom. 
It seems now to have been providential ; for in this 
Continental plot against liberty the superior sa- 
gacity of Calhoun and his associates was demon- 
strated by subsequent events, while Mr. Stephens, 
with his great influence in the South, could almost 
certainly have secured its triumph if he had become 
its champion instead of its enemy. 
4 



CHAPTER III. 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1 848 ITS INCIDENTS AND RE- 
SULTS. 

The approach of another presidential campaign — Party divisions 
threatened by the Wilmot proviso — Nomination of Gen. Cass 
— The "Nicholson Letter" — Democratic division in New- 
York — The nomination of Gen. Taylor — Whig divisions — 
Birth of the Free Soil party — The Buffalo Convention — 
Nomination of Van Buren and Adams — Difficulty of uniting 
on Van Buren — Incidents — Rev. Joshua Deavitt — The work 
of the campaign — Mr. Webster and Free Soil — Gieeley and 
Seward — Abuse of Whig bolters — Remarkable results of the 



The approach of another presidential year was 
thus marked by a steadily growing interest in the 
question of slavery. The conflict with it seemed 
far more irrepressible than ever before. The 
Liberty party had nominated John P. Hale as its 
candidate in 1847. The Whigs in Massachusetts 
were threatened with an incurable division into 
" Conscience Whigs " and " Cotton Whigs," grow 
ing out of the question of annexation and the 
government of our new Territories. The same 
causes were dividing the Democrats of New York, 
and the feud was seriously aggravated by remem- 
bering the defeat of Mr. Van Buren in 1844, for 

(50) 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1848. 5 I 

the one sin of opposing the immediate annexation of 
Texas, while a large majority of the party favored 
his nomination. The Van Buren element in the 
Democratic party threatened revolt in other States, 
while both Whigs and Democrats in the North 
were committed to the policy of the Wilmot pro- 
viso. This was to be the great question of the en- 
suing national canvass, and the roused spirit of the 
people of the free States seemed clearly to fore- 
shadow the triumph of freedom in the organization 
and government of our Mexican acquisitions. 

But the virtue and courage of our politicians 
were now to be severely tried. The power of party 
discipline and the tempting bait of' the spoils were 
to be employed as never before in swerving men 
from their convictions. The South, of course, was 
a perfect unit, and fully resolved upon the spread 
of slavery over our Territories. It had always been 
the absolute master of the Northern Democracy, 
and had no dream of anything less than the su- 
premacy of its own will. Its favorite candidate 
was now Gen. Cass, and he was nominated by the 
Baltimore National Convention on the 22d day of 
May. It was a fit nomination for the party of 
slavery. He had been thirsting for it many years, 
and had earned it by multiplied acts of the most 
obsequious and crouching servility to his southern 
overseers. Again and again he had crawled in the 
dust at their feet, and, if they could not now reward 
him with the presidency, it seemed utterly useless 



52 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

for any Northern man to hope for their favor. The 
"Nicholson letter" was not all that the South want- 
ed, but it was a very important concession, and with 
Gen. Cass as its interpreter it meant the nearest 
thing possible to a complete surrender. In this 
National Convention the State of New York had 
two sets of delegates, both of which were formally 
admitted, as a compromise; but the members of 
the Van Buren or Free Soil wing refused to take 
their seats, and thus held themselves in reserve for 
such revolutionary work as should afterward seem 
to them advisable. 

The Whig National Convention met in Phila- 
delphia on the 7th of June. The party seemed 
completely demoralized by the defeat of Mr. Clay 
in the previous canvass, and was now in search of 
" an available candidate," and inspired by the same 
miserable policy of expediency which had been so 
barren of results in 1840. The Northern Whigs 
appeared to be unanimously and zealously com- 
mitted to the prohibition of slavery in our Terri- 
tories, but equally unanimous and zealous in the 
determination to succeed in the canvass. For more 
than a year Gen. Taylor had been growing into 
favor with the party as a candidate, and he had 
now become decidedly formidable. The spectacle 
was a melancholy one, since it demonstrated the 
readiness of this once respectable old party to 
make complete shipwreck of everything wearing 
the semblance of principle, for the sake of success. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1S4S. 5 3 

General Taylor had never identified himself in any 
way with the Whig party. He had spent his life 
as a mere soldier on the frontier, and had never 
given a vote. He had frankly said he had not 
made up his mind upon the questions which 
divided the parties. He not only refused to be the 
exponent of Whig principles, but accepted the 
nomination of bodies of men not known as Whigs, 
who scouted the idea of being bound by the acts 
of any national convention. He was a very large 
slave-owner, and thus identified in interest, and pre- 
sumably in sympath}^, with the South ; but he 
could not be induced to define his position. His 
active supporters were chiefly from the slave-hold- 
ing States and those free States which had gener- 
ally given Democratic majorities, while the men 
most violent in their opposition to the Wilmot 
proviso were his most conspicuous followers; but 
the Whigs from the free States vouched for his 
soundness on the slavery issue. His letters con- 
tained nothing but vague generalities, and he 
utterly declined to commit himself on the question 
that was stirring the nation to its depths. To the 
different sections of the Union he wore a different 
face, and each section seemed confident that the 
other would be duped, while cordially joining in 
a common struggle for the spoils of office which 
constituted the sole bond of union. His early 
letters, before he fell into the hands of the poli- 
ticians, were frank and unstudied, reflecting his 



54 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

character as a plain old soldier without any political 
training ; but his later letters were diplomatic, not 
wanting in style and finish, and obviously written 
by others. His second letter to Allison, on which 
the campaign was finally fought, was written in the 
room of Alexander H. Stephens, in Washington, 
after consulting with Toombs and Crittenden, and 
afterward forwarded to Taylor, who gave it to the 
world as his own. He had constantly about him 
a sort of political body-guard, or ** committee of 
safety," to direct his way during the canvass, and 
no one could reasonably pretend that any principle 
whatever would be settled by the election. He had 
whipped the Mexicans, and the Whig platform was 
''Rough and Ready," "A little more Grape, Cap- 
tain Bragg," and political success. 

The nomination, moreover, was accomplished 
by methods which made it exceedingly exasperat- 
ing to Mr. Clay and his friends. The treachery 
of the Whig managers to their great leader ex- 
ceeded that which had sacrificed him at the Har- 
risburg Convention of 1839. The Whigs of Vir- 
ginia nominated Taylor on the credit of a forged 
despatch, to the effect that Kentucky had decided 
in his favor, and thus abandoned her favorite son. 
General Scott had expressed his willingness to 
run for Vice President if Clay should be nomi- 
nated for President, but the member of Congress 
who had been authorized to make this known 
kept it a secret. Clay allowed his name to go be- 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1848. 5 5 

fore the Convention on the assurance of Governor 
Bebb that Ohio would stand by him, but the dele- 
gation voted for Scott. On the first ballot, even 
seven delegates from Kentucky voted for Taylor, 
and he was nominated by 171 votes, with 63 for 
Scott, and only 32 for Clay. Of the votes for 
Taylor, on the first ballot, 97 were cast by 
States that had voted for Polk in 1844; and of 
the 94 Whig delegates from the Free States he re- 
ceived the votes of only four. He was nominated 
as the candidate of the Whigs who believed in the 
extension of slavery, by a Convention which re- 
peatedly and contemptuously voted down the Wil- 
mot proviso, already endorsed by all the Whig 
Legislatures of the Free States, while no platform 
of principles was adopted; and Horace Greeley 
was thus perfectly justified in branding it as " the 
slaughter-house of Whig principles." Such an 
exhibition of shameless political prostitution has 
rarely been witnessed, and three of the leading 
Whigs of Massachusetts — Charles Allen, Henry 
Wilson, and Stephen C. Phillips — left the Conven- 
tion in disgust, and severed their connection with 
the party forever. 

In this state of the country, and of the old par- 
ties, a new organization and another nomination be- 
came inevitable. The followers of Mr. Van Buren, 
in New York and other States, were aching 
for the opportunity to make themselves felt in 
avenging the wrong done to their chief in 1844, 



56 FOLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

and were quite ready to strike hands with the 
members of the Liberty party. The members of 
that party were generally ready to withdraw their 
candidate for President and unite with the anti- 
slavery Whigs and Democrats of the Northern 
States, if an honorable basis of action could be 
agreed upon. The " Conscience Whigs " of Massa- 
chusetts, and thousands of Whigs in other States, 
who regarded the freedom of our Territories as a 
vital issue, and were thoroughly soured by the 
nomination of General Taylor, were equally anx- 
ious to fuse with the other elements of political 
discontent, and make their voices heard in a new 
and independent organization. There was little 
time for delay, and as soon as the troubled polit- 
ical eletnents would permit, a call was issued for a 
National Free Soil Convention, at Buffalo, on the 
9th of August. 

The Convention was historic. It marked a new 
and significant departure in party politics, and was 
a conspicuous milestone in the anti-slaveryjourney. 
It met in a spacious pavilion, and was one of the 
largest political gatherings ever assembled in the 
country, and animated by unbounded earnestness 
and enthusiasm. Its leading spirits were men of 
character and undisputed ability. The " Barnburn- 
ers" of New York were largely in attendance, includ- 
ing such veteran leaders as Preston King, Benjamin 
F. Butler, David Dudley Field, Samuel J. Tilden, 
and James W. Nye. Ohio sent a formidable force 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1848. 57 

headed by Joshua R. Giddings, Salmon P. Chase, 
and Samuel Lewis. The " Conscience Whigs " 
of Massachusetts were well represented, with 
Charles Francis Adams, Stephen C Phillips, and 
Francis VV. Bird, in the front. The Liberty party 
sent its delegates, including such men as the Rev. 
Joshua Lcavitt, Samuel Lewis, and Henry B. 
Stanton. The disappointed Clay Whigs were there, 
led by such representative men as Joseph L. 
W^hite, who were eager to lay hold of any weapon 
by which they could hope to strike down the be- 
trayers of the Whig cause. The " Land Reform- 
ers " and " Workingmen " of New York were 
represented, as also the special advocates of 
*' Cheap postage for the people," who longed to be 
rid of the tariff of twenty-five cents on the privi- 
lege of sending a single letter through the mails, 
and whose wishes afterward found expression in 
the platform. 

Could these elements be harmonized? Could 
the bolters from the Whig party overcome their 
traditional hatred of Martin Van Buren ? If so, 
could the Liberty party men be prevailed upon to 
give up their chosen candidate, and labor for the 
election of the " foxy old politician" whose reputa- 
tion for tricky and ambidextrous political methods 
had become proverbial ? If not, could the Barn- 
burners, with their large following, be united on the 
candidate of the Liberty party, or some new man ? 
These questions had to be met ; but preliminary to 



^ 



58 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the nomination was the construction of a platform. 
This was accomplished without serious difficulty, 
and, considering the circumstances of the country, 
it was perhaps the most admirable declaration of 
principles ever promulgated by any party. It was 
chiefly the work of Mr. Chase, assisted by Charles 
Francis Adams, Benjamin F. Butler, and others, 
and it declared, among its pregnant and telling 
sentences, that " Congress has no more power to 
make a slave than to make a king," and that " it 
is the duty of the Federal Government to relieve 
itself from all responsibility for the existence or 
continuance of slavery wherever that Government 
possesses authority to legislate and is thus respon- 
sible for its existence." The reading of these dec- 
larations called forth thunders of applause, while 
the last plank in the platform " resolved, that we in- 
scribe on our banner free soil, free speech, free 
labor, and free men, and under it we will fight on 
and fight ever, until a triumphant victory shall 
reward our exertions." 

The nominating Convention assembled in the 
large Universalist Church in Buffalo. Mr. Van 
Buren was not understood as desiring the nomina- 
tion, but it was now authoritatively stated that he 
would accept it if tendered, and that he would, with- 
out hesitation or evasion, accept the platform of 
the Convention. The different elements of this 
movement had been in conference, and the time for 
action was at hand. In common with my Whig 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1848. 59 

associates, I had all along felt that I could not sup- 
port Mr. Van Buren under any circumstances; 
but the pervading tone of earnestness in the Con- 
vention, and the growing spirit of political frater- 
nity, had modified our views. We saw that several 
of the great leaders of the Liberty party were quite 
ready to meet the " Barnburners" on common 
ground. It seemed very desirable to combine with 
so large a body of helpers, and to profit by their 
experience and training in the school of practical 
politics. Mr. Van Buren had certainly gone great 
lengths as the servant of the slave power, but there 
was 07ie great and vital issue to freedom on which 
he had taken the right side, and maintained it with- 
out flinching in the presence of a great temptation ; 
and for this he had been anathematized by the 
South, and driven into retirement. If nominated by 
the anti-slavery men of the free States, and squarely 
committed to their principles, it was altogether im- 
probable, if not morally impossible, that he would 
again lend himself to the service of slavery. Be- 
sides, the whole country had been so demoralized 
by this evil that it was not easy to find any public 
man of eminence whose record had been spotless; 
and it was a part of the work of earnest anti-slavery 
men to forget party memories and prejudices for the 
sake of the cause, and to cultivate the virtues of 
hope and trust, rather than the spirit of doubt and 
suspicion, in dealing with a man who was now 
ready to unfurl the flag of freedom, and had been 



6o POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

stricken down by her foes. The nomination of Mr. 
Van Buren would undoubtedly mean the freedom 
of our Territories and the denationalization of 
slavery, and this was the great point. In this 
movement there was no element of compromise. 
It was wholly unhampered by a Southern wing; 
and even should the nominee betray the men who 
now trusted him, their choice of him, as their 
standard bearer, would be vindicated by the cir- 
cumstances of the hour. 

Mr. Chase, then in the prime of his manhood, 
and a splendid figure, was the president of this 
nominating Convention, and its work proceeded. 
There was a feeling of intense anxiety about the re- 
sult, and an earnestness and real seriousness which 
I have never witnessed in any other Convention. 
There were leading Whigs and Liberty party men, 
whose action in respect to Mr. Van Buren was not 
yet generally known. Several delegates remarked, 
*' I want to know what Samuel Lewis will do be- 
fore I decide," or, ** I want to hear from Joshua 
Leavitt." After the nomination of Mr. Van Buren 
had been moved, Mr. Leavitt rose from his seat, 
and all eyes were instantly turned upon him. He 
was then in middle life, and his tall and erect form 
and fine physiognomy were singularly striking. 
He was full of emotion, and seemed at first to lack 
the power of utterance, while the stillness of death 
prevailed in the Convention. He began by saying: 
*' Mr. Chairman, this is the most solemn experience 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1848. 6 1 

of my life. I feel as if in the immediate presence 
of the Divine Spirit." He paused here for a few 
moments, while there did not seem to be a dry eye 
in the Convention ; but he proceeded grandly with 
his speech, defined his position, and seconded the 
motion for Mr. Van Buren's nomination, upon 
which the mingled political enthusiasm and re- 
ligious fervor of the Convention broke over all 
bounds, and utterly deified description. Men 
laughed and cried at the same time, and gave 
themselves up to the perfect abandon of their feel- 
ings. All divisions had completely died away, 
and the nomination of Mr. Van Buren by acclama- 
tion became a matter of course. Charles Francis 
Adams was then nominated for Vice President, 
when the Convention adjourned, and its members 
returned to their homes to prepare for the coming 
canvass under the banner of " Van Buren and Free 
Soil — Adams and Liberty." 

The new national party was now launched, and 
the work of this presidential canvass began in ear- 
nest. John A. Dix, then one of the United States 
Senators from New York, was nominated for Gov- 
ernor, with Seth M. Gates, the anti-slavery col- 
league of Adams and Giddings in Congress, for 
Lieutenant-Governor. The Free Soil State Con- 
vention of Ohio set the ball in motion in that State, 
and the new party, by securing the balance of 
power in the Legislature, was able to place Mr. 
Chase in the Senate of the United States. Stephen 



62 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS, 

C. Phillips was nominated for Governor in Massa- 
chusetts, where the movement was very formidable, 
and exceedingly annoying to the " Cotton Whigs." 
Like conventions were held in Indiana and other 
free States, organizations effected, and candidates 
nominated, while the movement extended to the 
border slave States, in which it afterward did ex- 
cellent service. The canvass of the Democrats was 
not remarkably enthusiastic. The division of the 
party and the probable loss of the State of New 
York had a very depressing influence. The Whig 
canvass was perhaps marked by still less earnest- 
ness and spirit. It was hollow and false, and the 
best men in the party felt it. The only enthusiasm 
of the campaign was in the new party, and it was 
perfectly spontaneous and fervid. The most re- 
markable feature of this contest was the bitterness 
of the Whigs toward the Free Soilers, and especially 
those who had deserted from the Whig ranks. 
They seemed to be maddened by the imputation 
that they were not perfectly sound on the Free 
Soil issue. This was particularly true of Mr. 
Webster, who had been branded by Mr. Adams as 
a " Traitor to freedom," as far back as the year 
1848, and who afterward justified these strong 
words in his " Seventh of March Speech." In the 
Whig State Convention of Massachusetts, held at 
Springfield, in 1847, Mr. Webster, speaking of the 
Wilmot proviso, had said : " Did I not commit my- 
self to that in the year 1838, fully, entirely? I do 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 184S. 63 

not consent that more recent discoverers shall take 
out a patent for the discovery. Allow me to say, 
sir, it is not their thunder." He then claimed Free 
Soil as a distinctive Whig doctrine, and in a speech 
at Abingdon, he now said : " The gentlemen who 
have joined this new party, from among the Whigs, 
pretend that they are greater lovers of liberty and 
greater haters of slavery than those they leave be- 
hind them. I do not admit it. I do not admit any 
such thing. I think we are as good Free Soil men 
as they are." The same ground was urged by 
Washington Hunt, James Brooks, and other leading 
Whigs; and Mr. Greeley declared that " at no time 
previously had Whig inculcations throughout the 
free States been so decidedly and strongly hostile to 
the extension of slavery, and so determined in re- 
quiring its inhibition by Congress, as during the 
canvass of 1848." These statements appear very 
remarkable, when it is remembered that the Whig 
nominee was a Louisiana planter, and the owner 
of three hundred negroes, and that he was nomi- 
nated at the bidding of the slave-holding wing of the 
party, and by a convention which not only con- 
temptuously voted down the Wilmot proviso, but 
treated its advocates as " fanatics." But even Gov- 
ernor Seward strangely clung to the old party after 
the death and burial of its conscience, and seriously 
brought his personal integrity into question by 
urging the support of General Taylor upon those 
who favored the abolition of slavery. In a speech 



f 



64 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

at Qeveland, Ohio, in October of that year, he 
said: "Freedom insists on the emancipation and 
development of labor; slavery demands a soil moist- 
ened with tears and blood — freedom a soil that ex- 
ults under the elastic tread of man in his native 
majesty. These elements divide and classify the 
American people into two parties," and he pro- 
ceeded to argue as if the Whigs and Democrats 
were thus divided, when he knew that both were 
in the absolute control of the slave power. 

The Free Soilers, of course, did not particularly 
relish these moral lectures on slavery by men who 
had sold their principles at public auction for the 
chance of office and plunder through the elevation 
of a mere military chieftain to the Presidency. 
But the Whigs were not content with claiming the 
complete monopoly of anti-slavery virtue, and 
parading it before the country; they became 
abusive and insulting to the full measure of their 
insincerity. Their talk about " renegades " and 
" apostates " anticipated the abuse heaped upon the 
Greeley men of 1872, when the Republican party 
had so completely triumphed over the integrity of 
its earlier life. The course of the Whigs in In- 
diana supplies a striking illustration. After the 
presidential election of 1844, 1 resolved that I would 
never vote for another slaveholder, and the course 
of events and my own reflections had constantly 
strengthened this purpose. I saw no honorable 
way of escape, and my position was well known to 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1S48. 



my Whig brethren ; but, as soon as General Taylor 
was nominated, the policy of brow-beating and 
threats was invoked. I had no taste for politics, 
and had determined to devote myself entirely to 
my profession. I was especially anxious to avoid 
any strife with the Whigs, who were overwhelm- 
ingly in the ascendant in Eastern Indiana, and in 
whose ranks were most of my clients and best 
friends. But the party leaders talked to me in the 
imperative mood. They saw my embarrassment, 
and seemed determined to coerce me into sub- 
mission by the supposed extremity of my situation ; 
and I was obliged to offer them open defiance. I 
was made an elector for Van Buren and Adams in 
the Fourth Indiana District, and entered upon the 
contest with a will; and from that time forth I was 
subjected to a torrent of billingsgate which rivalled 
the fish market. Words were neither minced nor 
mollified, but made the vehicles of political wrath 
and the explosions of personal malice. The charge 
of " abolitionism " was flung at me everywhere, 
and it is impossible now to realize the odium then 
attaching to that term by the general opinion, I 
was an "amalgamationist" and a "woolly-head." 
I was branded as the " apostle of disunion " and 
" the orator of free-dirt." It was a standing charge 
of the Whigs that I carried in my pocket a lock 
of the hair of Frederick Douglass, to regale my 
senses with its aroma when I grew faint. They de- 
clared that my audiences consisted of "eleven men, 



66 POLITICAL RECOLLECTLONS. 

three boys, and a negro," and sometimes I could 
not deny that this inventory was not very far from' 
the truth. I was threatened with mob violence by 
my own neighbors, and treated as if slavery had 
been an established institution of the State, with its 
machinery of overseers and background of pauper- 
ized whites ; while these same Whigs, as if utterly 
unconscious of the irony of their professions, uni- 
formly resolved, in their conventions, that "the 
Whig party is the only true Free Soil party." 

I was not, of course, a non-resistant in this war- 
fare, and for two months I gave myself up to the 
work absolutely. I was seriously embarrassed in 
the outset by the question of transportation, having 
neither horse nor carriage, nor the financial ability 
to procure either ; but an anti-slavery Quaker, and 
personal friend, named Jonathan Macy, came to my 
rescue. He furnished me an old white horse, fully 
seventeen hands high, and rather thin in flesh, but 
which served my purpose pretty well. I named 
him " Old Whitey," in honor of General Taylor's 
famous war steed, and sallied forth in the work of 
the- campaign. Having a first-class pair of lungs 
and much physical endurance, I frequently spoke 
as often as three times a day, and generallv from 
two to three hours at each meeting. I splice at 
cross-roads, in barns, in pork houses, in saw-mills, 
in any place in which a few or many people would 
hear me ; but I was rarely permitted to enter any 
of the churches. I was so perfeefclv swallowed up 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 184S. 67 

in my work and dominated by the singleness of 
my purpose, that I took no thought of anything 
else ; and the vigor of my invective in dealing with 
the scurrilous attacks of my assailants was very 
keenly realized, and, I believe, universally acknowl- 
edged. With the truth on my side, I was delighted 
to find myself perfectly able, single-handed, to 
fight my battle against the advantages of superior 
talent and the trained leadership of men of estab- 
lished reputation on the stump. But the fight, as I 
have said, was unspeakably relentless, vitriolic and 
exhausting, and nothing could redeem it but an 
overmastering sense of duty and self-respect. The 
worst passions of humanity were set on fire among 
the Whigs by this provoking insurrection against 
their party as the mere tool of slavery, while ani- 
mosities were engendered that still survive, and 
which many men have carried to their graves. 
This is only a single illustration of the spirit of 
the canvass, for similar conflicts marked the 
struggle in Ohio, Massachusetts and other States, 
and they were made inevitable by the desperation 
of a party already dead in its trespasses, and 
which deserved a funeral instead of a triumph. 

The results of this contest were most remark- 
able. General Taylor was elected, but his triumph 
was the death of the Whig party. The long-cov- 
eted prize of the presidency was snatched from 
General Cass, and the Democratic party divided 
and humiliated by its struggle to serve two masters, 



68 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

while the friends of Mr. Van Buren had their 
longed-for revenge. The Free Soil ticket received 
a little less than three hundred thousand votes, 
and failed to carry the electoral vote of a single 
State; but the effect of the movement was inesti- 
mably important. It seated Chase in the United 
States Senate from Ohio, and sent to the lower 
branch of Congress a sufficient number of anti- 
slavery men from different States to hold the 
balance of power in that body. It was very 
savingly felt in Congress in July of this year, on 
the vote by which Oregon, with a territory nearly 
equal to that of the thirteen original States, nar- 
rowly escaped the damnation of slavery. It em- 
phasized the demand of the million for " cheap 
postage," and the freedom of the public domain, 
and thus helped stereotype these great measures 
into law; and it played its part in creating the 
public opinion which compelled the admission of 
California as a free State. These were great 
achievements, but they were mere preliminaries to 
the magnificent and far-reaching work of succeed- 
ing years, of which the revolt of 1848 was the 
promise and pledge. 



CHAPTER IV. 

REMINISCENCES OF THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 

Novel political complications — The Compromise Measures — First 
election to Congress — Sketch of the '* immortal nine " — The 
speakership and Wm. J. Brown — Gen. Taylor and the Wil- 
mot proviso — Slave-holding bluster — Compromise resolutions 
of Clay, and retreat of Northern Whigs — Visit to Gen. Taylor 
— ^To Mr. Clay — His speeches — Webster's seventh of March 
speech — Character of Calhoun— Speech on the slavery ques- 
tion. 

The scheme of "pacification" and "final settle- 
ment," which was launched in 1850, under the 
leadership of Henry Clay, constitutes one of the 
chief landmarks in the history of the great conflict 
between freedom and slavery. It was the futile 
attempt of legislative diplomacy to escape the fatal 
logic of antecedent facts. The war with Mexico, 
like the annexation of Texas which paved the way 
for it, was inspired by the lust for slave territory. 
No sophistry could disguise this fact, nor could its 
significance be overstated. The prophets of slavery 
saw clearly that restriction meant destruction. 
They girded themselves for battle on this issue, 
and were not at all placated by Northern disclaim- 
ers of " abolitionism," and reiterated disavowals 
of any right or purpose to intermeddle with 

(69) 



70 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

slavery as the creature of State law. Its exist- 
ence was menaced by the policy of confinement 
and ultimate suffocation ; and therefore no compro- 
mise of the pending strife over its prohibition in 
New Mexico, Utah and California was possible. 

This strife was aggravated by its peculiar rela- 
tions to the dominant political parties. The sacri- 
fice of Martin Van Buren in 1844, because of his 
manly letter on the annexation of Texas, had been 
a sore trial to his devoted friends. They could 
neither forgive nor forget it ; and v/hen the oppor- 
tunity for revenge finally came in 1848, they laid 
hold of it with the sincerest and most heartfelt 
satisfaction. As we have seen, they bolted from 
their party, threw themselves into the Free Soil 
movement, and thus made the defeat of Gen. Cass 
inevitable by the election of Gen. Taylor. Thou- 
sands of these bolting Democrats, particularly in 
the State of New York, cared more for the per- 
sonal and political fortunes of Mr. Van Buren than 
for the slavery question, as their subsequent return 
to their party allegiance made manifest ; but their 
action was none the less decisive in the emergency 
which called it forth. The trouble in the Whig 
camp was also serious. The last hopes of Mr. 
Clay and his worshipers had perished forever in 
the nomination of the hero of the Mexican war 
and the owner of two hundred slaves, by a Conven- 
tion which became famous as " the slaughterhouse 
of Whig principles." Very many of these Clay 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. J\ 

Whigs, like the devotees of Mr. Van Buren, would 
have been satisfied with almost any disposition of 
the slavery issue if their chief had been nominated, 
but they were now enlisted in the anti-slavery 
army, and, like Joseph L. White, of Indiana, vocif- 
erously shouted for " liberty and revenge." Mr. 
Webster and his friends were also profoundly dis- 
gusted, and lent a strong hand to the work of 
party insubordination, while the election of Gen. 
Taylor was quite naturally followed by formidable 
party coalitions. One of these, as already stated, 
made Salmon P. Chase a senator of the United 
States from Ohio, as John P. Hale had been 
chosen from New Hampshire some time before, 
and Charles Sumner came in a little later from 
Massachusetts; and the House of Representatives 
now contained nine distinctively anti-slavery men, 
chosen from different States by kindred combina- 
tions, who had completely renounced their alle- 
giance to the old parties, ard were able to wield the 
balance of power in that body. Such were the 
complications of the great problem which con- 
fronted the Thirty-first Congress at the opening of 
its first session, on the third day of December, 
1849. 

In this Congress I was a representative, for the 
first time, of the Fourth Indiana District. This dis- 
trict contained a large Quaker population, and in 
the matter of liberality and progress was in 
advance of all other portions of the State ; and yet 



J 2 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the immeasurable wrath and scorn which were 
lavished upon the men who deserted the Whig- 
party on account of the nomination of General 
Taylor can scarcely be conceived. The friends 
of a life-time were suddenly turned into enemies, 
and their words were often dipped in venom. It 
seemed as if a section of Kentucky or Virginia had 
in some way usurped the geography of Eastern 
Indiana, bringing with it the discipline of the slave- 
master, and a considerable importation of " white 
trash." The contest was bitter beyond all prece- 
dent; but after a hard fight, and by a union of 
Free Soilers, Democrats, and Independent Whigs, 
I was elected by a small majority. Owing to seri- 
ous illness, resulting from the excitement and over- 
w^ork of the canvass, I did not reach Washington 
till the 19th of December — ^just in time to cast my 
vote for speaker on the fifty-sixth ballot in this 
first important " dead-lock " in the organization of 
the House. With the exception of two Indiana 
members, I had no personal acquaintance in either 
branch of Congress, and, on entering the old Hall 
of Representatives, m}^ first thought was to find 
the Free Soil members, whose political fortunes 
and experience had been so similar to my own. 
The seat of Mr. Giddings was pointed out to me 
in the northwest corner of the Hall, where I found 
the stalwart champion of free speech busy with his 
pen. He received me with evident cordiality, and 
at once sent a page for the other Free Soil merp- 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 73 

bers. Soon the " immortal nine," as we were often 
sportively styled, were all together: David Wil- 
mot, of Pennsylvania, then famous as the author 
of the " Proviso," short and corpulent in person, 
and emphatic in speech ; Preston King, of New 
York, with his still more remarkable rotundity of 
belt, and a face beaming with good humor ; the 
eccentric and witty " Jo Root," of Ohio, always 
ready to break a lance with the slave-holders ; 
Charles Allen, of Massachusetts, the quiet, digni- 
fied, clear-headed and genial gentleman, but a 
good fighter and the unflinching enemy of slavery ; 
Charles Durkee, of Wisconsin, the fine-looking and 
large-hearted philanthropist, whose enthusiasm 
never cooled ; Amos Tuck, of New Hampshire, 
amiable and somewhat feminine in appearance, but 
firm in purpose; John W. How^e, of Pennsylvania, 
with a face radiant with smiles and good will, and 
full of anti-slavery fervor ; and Joshua R. Giddings, 
of Ohio, with his broad shoulders, giant frame, 
unquenchable love of freedom, and almost as 
familiar with the slavery question, in all its aspects, 
as he was with the alphabet. These, all now gone 
to their reckoning, were the elect of freedom in 
the lower branch of this memorable Congress. 
They all greeted me warmly, and the more so, 
perhaps, because my reported illness and doubtful 
recovery had awakened a peculiar interest in my 
fortunes at that time, on account of the political 
situation, and the possible significance of a single 



74 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS, 

vote. John P. Hale happened to enter the hall 
during these congratulations, and still further 
lighted up the scene by his jolly presence; while 
Dr. Bailey, of the " National Era," also joined in 
the general welcome, and at once confirmed all the 
good opinions I had formed of this courageous and 
single-minded friend of the slave. I was delighted 
with all my brethren, and at once entered fully into 
their plans and counsels. 

An incident connected with the organization of 
the House, which caused intense excitement at the 
time, seems to deserve some notice. It occurred 
on the 1 2th of December, while William J. Brown, 
of Indiana, was being voted for as the Democratic 
candidate for Speaker. He was a pro-slavery Dem- 
ocrat, through and through, and commanded the 
entire and unhesitating confidence of Southern 
members ; and yet, on the last ballot for him, he 
received the votes of Allen, Durkee, Giddings, 
King, and Wilmot, and came within two votes of 
an election. The support of Mr. Brown by the 
leading Free Soilers was a great surprise to both 
sides of the House, and the suspicion that some 
secret arrangement had been made gave birth to a 
rumor to that effect. After the balloting, while 
Mr. Bailey, of Virginia, was on the floor, Mr. Ash- 
mun, of Massachusetts, asked him whether a secret 
correspondence had not taken place between som.e 
member of the Free Soil party and Mr. Brown, by 
which the latter had agreed to constitute the Com- 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 75 

mittees on the Judiciary, on Territories, and on 
the District of Columbia, in a manner satisfactory 
to that party. Mr. Bailey scouted the idea, and 
asked Mr. Ashmun what authority he had for the 
statement. Mr. Ashmun replied, " Common ru- 
mor"; to which Mr. Bailey rejoined, " Does not the 
gentleman know that common rumor is a common 
liar } " Turning to Mr. Brown he said, " Has any 
such correspondence taken place ? " Mr. Brown 
shook his head, and Mr. Bailey became more em- 
phatic than ever in his denial. But the fever was 
now up, and the Southern members scented trea- 
son. Several of them withheld their votes from 
Mr. Brown because of his Free Soil support, and 
thus prevented his election. He was in a very 
trying dilemma with his Southern friends, while 
the Free Soilers who had supported him were also 
placed in a novel predicament, and subjected to 
catechism. The fact was finally revealed in the 
course of a long and exciting debate, that Mr. Wil- 
mot had entered into a correspondence with Mr. 
Brown on the subject of the organization of the 
Committees named, and that the latter had prom- 
ised in writing to constitute them as stated in Mr. 
Ashmun's inquiry — declaring that he had " always 
been opposed to the extension of slavery," and 
believed that " the Federal Government should be 
relieved from the responsibility of slavery where it 
had the constitutional right to abolish it." This, 
in substance, was the whole Free Soil gospel ; and 



76 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the disappointment and rage of Southern members, 
when the letter was produced, can be more easily 
imagined than described. Mr. Brown labored very 
painfully to explain his letter and pacify his South- 
ern friends, but the effort was utterly vain. He 
was branded with treachery and duplicity by Bai- 
ley, Harris, Burt, Venable, Stanton, and McMullen, 
while no man from the South pretended to excuse 
him. In the midst of great excitement he with- 
drew from the contest for Speaker, and the catas- 
trophe of his secret maneuver was so unspeakably 
humiliating that even his enemies pitied him. But 
he was unjustly dealt with by his Southern breth- 
ren, whose fear of betrayal and morbid sensitive- 
ness made all coolness of judgment impossible. 
While he possessed very social and kindly per- 
sonal traits of character, no man in this Congress 
was more inflexibly true to slavery, as his subse- 
quent career amply demonstrated. If he had been 
chosen Speaker he would doubtless have placed 
some of the Free Soil members on the Committees 
specified, but the whole power of his office would 
have been studiously subservient to the behests of 
the slave oligarchy ; and nothing could excuse the 
conduct of Mr. Wilmot and his associates but their 
entire ignorance of his political character and an- 
tecedents. I regretted this affair most sincerely, 
for I knew Mr. Brown well, and could undoubtedly 
have prevented the negotiation if I had been 
present. 



THE THlRTY-FIRSr CONGRESS. 77 

The Speakership was obviously the first question 
on which the slave power must be met in the 
Thirty-first Congress. No question could more 
completely have presented the entire controversy 
between the free and slave States which had so 
stirred the country during the previous eighteen 
months. In view of the well-nigh autocratic 
power of the Speaker over legislative measures, no 
honest Free Soiler could vote for a candidate who 
was not known to be sound on the great issue. 
We could not support Howell Cobb, of Georgia, 
the nominee of the Democratic party, however 
anxious our Democratic constituents might be to 
have us do so ; nor could we vote for Robert C. 
Winthrop, of Massachusetts, to please the Whigs 
and semi-Free Soilers who affiliated with them, 
since Giddings, Palfrey and others had demon- 
strated that he was wholly untrustworthy in facing 
the ragged issue of slavery. This had been proved 
by his acts as Speaker in the preceding Congress. 
We therefore united in the determination to vote 
for neither of these candidates. The contest was 
protracted till December 22d, when, on the- sixty 
third ballot, Mr. Cobb was chosen. The result 
was effected, by adopting, at the instigation of the 
Whigs, what was called the "plurality rule," the 
operation of which enabled a minority to choose 
the speaker. The Whigs, when they entered upon 
this proceeding, well knew that the Free Soilers 
were willing and anxious to vote for Thaddeus 



y^ POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

Stevens, or any other reliable member of the 
party. - They well knew that none of us would 
vote for Mr. Winthrop, under any circumstances, 
a4id for excellent reasons which we had announced. 
Further, they well knew that without Free Soil 
votes Mr. Cobb would certainly be chosen ; and 
yet the angry cry went up from the Whigs in 
Congress and throughout the Northern States that 
the Free Soilers had elected a slave-holder to be 
speaker of the House! For a time the ridiculous 
charge served the purpose of its authors, but 
the subsequent career of Mr. Winthrop finally 
and entirely vindicated the sagacity of the men 
whose resolute opposition had thwarted his ambi- 
tion. 

In the further organization of the House Mr. 
Campbell, a Tennessee slave-holder, was chosen 
clerk on the twentieth ballot, by the help of South- 
ern Democrats, over John W. Forney, who was 
then the particular friend of James Buchanan, and 
who had made himself so conspicuous by his 
abuse of anti-slavery men that the Free Soil mem- 
bers could not give him their support. On the 
eighth ballot Mr. Glossbrenner, of Pennsylvania, 
the nominee of the Democrats, was chosen ser- 
geant-at-arms, and after fourteen ineffectual ballots 
for doorkeeper, Mr. Horner, the Whig incumbent 
in the preceding Congress, was continued by reso- 
lution of the House. This was on January i8th, 
and the organization of the House was not yet 



THE THIRTY- FIRST CONGRESS. 79 

completed, but further proceedings in this direction 
were now postponed till the first of March. 

In the meantime the slavery question had been 
receiving daily attention. The strife over the 
Speakership had necessarily involved it, and con- 
stantly provoked its animated discussion. The great 
issue was the Congressional prohibition of slavery 
in the Territories, then popularly known as the 
" Wilmot proviso " ; and the first vote on it was 
taken December 31st, upon the motion to lay on the 
table Mr. Root's resolution which embodied it. The 
yeas were 83, nays loi ; being a majority of only 
18 in its favor. The Southern men seemed to 
gather hope and courage from this vote. On Jan- 
uary 4th, the President sent in his special message 
relative to California and New Mexico, announcing 
his famous " Non-action " policy, which v/as sim- 
ply another name for the " Non-intervention " 
dogma of Gen. Cass. A year before he had de- 
clared that the new Territories must not be " sur- 
rendered to the pistol and the bowie-knife " ; but a 
new light now dawned -on him, and he advised 
Congress to leave the Territories to themselves till 
their people should be prepared to ask admission 
into the Union as States. He talked as glibly 
about " geographical parties " and the *' operation 
of natural causes " as any trained Whig politician, 
and seemed to have totally forgotten his repeated 
pledges not to interfere with the action of Congress 
respecting " domestic questions." While the hand 



8o POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

of the Executive was thus at work, extreme men in 
both Houses led the way in violent and inflamma- 
tory speeches. "When we ask for justice, and to 
be let alone," said Mr. Clingman, of North Caro- 
lina, " we are met by the senseless and insane cry 
of Union, Union ! Sir, I am disgusted with it. 
When it comes from Northern gentlemen who are 
attacking us, it falls on my ear as it would do if a 
band of robbers had surrounded a dwelling, and 
when the inmates attempted to resist, the assailants 
should raise the cry of peace, union, harmony ! " 
He gave out the threat, that unless the slave-hold- 
ers were allowed to extend their system over the 
virgin soil of our Territories, they would block the 
wheels of Government, and involve the nation in 
the horrors of civil war. He charged that the free 
States " keep up and foster in their bosoms Aboli- 
tion Societies, whose main purpose is to scatter 
fire-brands throughout the South, to incite servile 
insurrections, and stimulate by licentious pictures 
our negroes to invade the persons of our white 
women." Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, said he re- 
garded slavery " as a great moral, social, and re- 
ligions blessing. — a blessing to the slave, and a 
blessing to the master." He graciously admitted 
that Northern people thought slavery an evil ; but 
he added, " Very well, think so ; but keep your 
thougJits to yourselves^ Jefferson Davis, then as 
ever afterward, the apostle of disunion, declared 
that " slavery existed in the tents of the patriarchs, 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 



and in the households of His own chosen people "; 
that *' it was established by decree of Almighty 
God, " and " sanctioned in the Bible — in both Testa- 
ments — from Genesis to Revelations." Southern 
members pointed to the battle-fields of the Revolu- 
tion, and warned the people of the free States to 
beware ; while the menace was uttered that if the 
representatives of the Northern States should vote 
California into the Union as a free State, without 
some compensating measures to the South, their 
numbers would be decimated by violence. Mr. 
Toombs, in referring to the exclusion of slavery 
from the common territory, said, " I will then, if I 
can, bring my children and my constituents to the 
altar of liberty, and like Hamilcar, I will swear 
them to eternal hostility to your foul domination." 
On January 29th, Mr. Clay introduced his eight 
resolutions of compromise, which still further weak- 
ened the anti-slavery policy of Northern Whigs ; 
and when, on February 4th, another vote was taken 
on the Wilmot proviso, it was laid on the table by 
yeas 104, nays 75; — showing a majority of 29, and 
a change of 47 votes in a little more than one month ! 
Thus began the sickening career of political apos- 
tacy, which so gathered momentum during the 
spring and summer months that it became impos- 
sible to admit the free State of California into the 
Union till the passage of the Texas Boundary Bill 
and the new Fugitive Slave Act had been made 
certain. 



82 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

Early in the session I called on President Taylor 
with Mr. Giddings and Judge Allen. I had a very 
strong curiosity to see the man whose name I had 
used so freely in two exasperating political cam- 
paigns, and desired to stand corrected in my estimate 
of his character, if I should find such correction to 
be demanded by the truth. Our interview with the 
old soldier was exceedingly interesting and amus- 
ing. I decidedly liked his kindly, honest, farmer- 
like face, and his old-fashioned simplicity of dress 
and manners. His conversation was awkward and 
labored, and evinced a lack of self-possession ; while 
his whole demeanor suggested his frontier life, and 
that he had reached a position for which he was 
singularly unfitted by training and experience, or 
by any natural aptitude. In the few remarks he 
addressed to me about farming in the West, he 
greatly amused us by saying, " I would like to 
visit Indiana, and see your plows, hoes — and other 
reaping implements "; failing, as he often did, to 
find the word he wanted. He frequently mispro- 
nounced his words, hesitated and stammered, and 
sometimes made a breakdown in the middle of a 
sentence. But although he seemed to be in the 
hands of the slave-holders, and was about to" pro- 
claim his policy of non-intervention with slavery 
in the Territories, he impressed me as being per- 
sonally honest and patriotic. In this impression I 
was fully confirmed later in the session, when 
he sorrowfully but manfully resisted the attempt 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 83 

of Senator Davis, his son-in-law, and other ex- 
treme men, to bully him into their measures, and 
avowed his sympathy with the anti-slavery senti- 
ment of the country. I believe his dying words 
in July, " I have tried to do my duty," were the 
key-note of his life, and that in the Presidential 
campaign of 1848, I did him much, though unin- 
tentional, injustice. 

It was about the same time that I called with 
other Western members to see Mr. Clay, at the 
National Hotel. He received us with the most 
gracious cordiality, and perfectly captivated us all 
by the peculiar and proverbial charm of his man- 
ners and conversation. I remember nothing like 
it in the social intercourse of my life. One of our 
party was Hon. L. D. Campbell, then a prominent 
Whig politician of Ohio, and an old friend of Mr. 
Clay, who seemed anxious to explain his action in 
supporting Gen. Scott in the National Convention 
of 1848. He failed to satisfy Mr. Clay, whose eye 
kindled during the conversation, and who had 
desired and counted on the nomination himself. 
Mr. Clay, addressing him, but turning to me, said : 
"I can readily understand the position of our 
friend from Indiana, whose strong opinions on the 
slavery question governed his action ; but your 
position was different, and, besides. General Scott 
had no chance for the nomination, and you were 
under no obligation to support him." He spoke 
in kindly terms of the Free Soil men ; said they 



84 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

acted consistently in supporting Van Buren in 
preference to Taylor, and that the election of the 
latter would prove the ruin of the Whigs. I heard 
Mr. Clay's great speech in the Senate on the Com- 
promise Measures, and although I believed him to 
be radically wrong, I felt myself at times drawn 
toward him by that peculiar spell which years 
before had bound me to him as my idolized polit- 
ical leader. I witnessed his principal encounters 
with Col. Benton during this session, in which I 
thought the latter had the better of the argument ; 
but his reply to Mr. Barnwell, of South Carolina, 
on July 22d, in which he said : " I owe a para- 
mount allegiance to the whole Union, a subordi- 
nate one to my State," and denounced the treasona- 
ble utterances of Mr. Rhett, was altogether inimita- 
ble and unsurpassed. In the same speech he showed 
as little quarter to the Abolitionists. Turning to 
Mr. Hale, he said, " They live by agitation. It is 
their meat, their bread, the air which they breathe ; 
and if they jaw in its incipient state, a measure giv- 
ing them more of that food, and meat, and bread, 
and air, do you believe they would oppose 
themselves to its adoption .? Do you not believe 
that they would hail [Hale] it as a blessing ? * * 
* They see their doom as certain as there is a 
God in heaven, who sends his providential dispen- 
sations to calm the threatening storm, and to tran- 
quilize agitated man. As certain as God exists in 
heaven, your business, your vocation is gone." 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 85 



His devotion to the Union was his ruling passion, 
and in one of his numerous speeches during 
this session he held up a fragment of Washington's 
coffin, and with much dramatic effect pleaded for 
reconciliation and peace between the warring sec- 
tions. 

His scheme of compromise, or "omnibus bill," was 
the darling child of his political ambition and old 
age; and when, after lovingly nursing it and gallantly 
fighting for it through seven or eight weary months, 
he saw it cruelly dismembered on July 31st, and his 
sovereign remedy for our national troubles insulted 
by the separate passage of the bill providing a 
Territorial Government for Utah, I could not help 
feeling a profound personal sympathy with him. 
Beaten at last at every point, deserted by some 
senators in whom he had trusted implicitly, crushed 
and exhausted by labors which few young and 
vigorous men could have endured, he bowed to the 
inevitable, and retired from the Senate Chamber. 
But the next morning, prior to his departure for 
the sea-shore, he was in his seat ; and with hght- 
ning in his eye, and figure erect as ever, he paid 
his respects to the men whose work of political 
havoc he deplored. His impassioned arraignment 
of the disunionists was loudly applauded by the 
galleries, and clearly indicated the part he would 
have played in the late Rebellion had his life been 
spared to witness that direful event. " So long," 
said he, " as it pleases God to give me a voice to ex- 



86 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

press my sentiments, or an arm, weak and enfeebled 
as it may be by age, that voice and that arm will 
be on the side of my country, for the support of 
the general authority, and for the maintenance of 
the powers of this Union." 

I heard the famous " Seventh of March Speech" 
of Mr. Webster. To me his oratory was a perfect 
surprise and curiosity. He not only spoke with 
very unusual deliberation, but with pauses having 
no relation whatever to the sense. His sentences 
were broken into the oddest fragments, and the 
hearer was perplexed in the endeavor to gather 
his meaning. In declaring, for example, that he 
" would put in no Wilmot proviso for the purpose 
of a taunt," etc., he made a long pause at " Wilmot," 
perhaps a half minute, and finally, having appa- 
rently recovered his breath, added the word " pro- 
viso " ; and then, after another considerable pause, 
went on with his sentence. His speaking seemed 
painfully laborious. Great drops of perspiration 
stood upon his forehead and face, notwithstanding 
the slowness of his utterance, suggesting, as a pos- 
sible explanation, a very recent and heavy dinner, 
or a greatly troubled conscience over his final act 
of apostasy from his early New England faith. 
The latter was probably the truth, since he is 
known to have long and seriously pondered the 
question of his ultimate decision; and with his 
naturally great and noble traits of character he 
could not have announced it without manifest 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 8/ 

tokens of uneasiness. I was greatly interested in 
the brief dialogue between him and Mr. Calhoun, 
which followed this speech. Reference was made 
to their famous passage-at-arms twenty years be- 
fore; and Mr. Calhoun, while taking exception to 
some of Mr. Webster's positions, congratulated him 
on his strong deliverance in the interest of slavery. 
The great Carolinian was then wrestling with the 
disease which soon afterward terminated his life, 
and was thin, pale, and feeble of step ; but his sin- 
gularly intellectual face, and the peculiar light 
which flashed from his eye while speaking, made 
him the most strikingly picturesque figure in the 
Senate. No man can compute the evils wrought 
by his political theories ; but in private life he was 
thoroughly upright and pure, and no suspicion of 
political jobbery was ever whispered in connection 
with his name. In his social relations he was 
most genial and kindly, while he always welcomed 
the society of young men who sought the aid of 
his friendly counsel. Politically, he has been sin- 
gularly misunderstood. He was not. as has been 
so generally thought, a disunlonist. He was the 
champion of State Sovereignty, but he believed 
that this was the sure basis and bond of Union. 
He thought the right of State nullification, if recog- 
nized, would hold the central power in check, and 
thus cement the Union; while his devotion to Afri- 
can slavery as a defensible form of society, and a 



88 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

solution of the conflict between capital and labor, 
was doubtless as sincere as it was fanatical. 

During the first months of this session my spare 
time was devoted to the preparation of a speech on 
the slavery question. My constituents expected 
this, and so did my anti-slavery and Free Soil friends 
generally. It was my darling purpose, and I re- 
solved to do my best upon it. I not only meant 
that they should not be ashamed of it, but that, if 
possible, it should stand the test of criticism, both as 
to matter and diction. I re-examined the question 
in its various aspects, and more thoroughly than I 
had been able to do before, giving special attention 
to the speeches of Southern members in both 
Houses, and carefully noting their vulnerable 
points. I overhauled the question of " Northern 
aggression " pretty thoroughly, and endeavored to 
expose the absurdity of that complaint, while 
crowding into my task such facts and arguments 
as would help educate the people in right thinking. 
I had my task completed in March, and now anx- 
iously waited the opportunity for its delivery. I 
was very curious to know how it would sound, 
and what would be thought of it, while my consti- 
tutional selfdistrust made me dread the experi- 
ment unspeakably. My scuffle for the floor was a 
sore trial of patience, and it was not until the four- 
teenth of May that the competitive contest was 
ended. I got through with the work better than I 
anticipated, was handsomely listened to, and went 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 89 

home in triumph. A great burden of anxiety had 
been lifted, while I received letters from the lead- 
ing Abolitionists of New England and elsewhere, 
very cordially commending the speech, which was 
copied into the principal anti-slavery newspapers, 
and quite favorably noticed. I was flattered be- 
yond measure, and found my self-esteem germi- 
nating into new life under these fertilizing dews. 



CHAPTER V. 

reminiscences of the thirty-first congress 
(continued). 

Fracas between Col. Benton and Senator Foote — Character of 
Benton — Death of Gen. Taylor — The funeral — Defeat of the 
" Omnibus Bill " — Its triumph in detail — Celebration of the 
victory — " Lower law " sermons and "Union-saving" meet- 
ings — Slave-holding literature — Mischievous legislation — Visit 
to Philadelphia and Boston — Futile efforts to suppress agita- 
tion — Andrew Johnson and .the homestead law — Effort to 
censure Mr. Webster — Political morality in this Congress — 
Temperance — Jefferson Davis and other notable men — John 
P. Hale — Thaddeus Stevens — Extracts from speeches — The 
famous men in both Houses — The Free Soilers and their vin- 
dication. 

I HAPPENED to be in the Senate on April 17th, 
just before the memorable fracas between Foote, 
of Mississippi, and Col. Benton. They had had an 
unfriendly encounter not long before, and it was 
well understood that Benton had made up his 
mind that Foote should not henceforward name 
him or allude to him in debate. Foote had said : 
" I do not denounce him as a coward — such lan- 
guage is unfitted for this audience — but if he wishes 
to patch up his reputation for courage, now greatly 
on the wane, he will certainly have an opportunity 
of doing so whenever he makes known his desire 
in the premises." Benton replied : " Is a senator 

(90) 



THE THIRTY- FIR ST CONGRESS. 



to be blackguarded in the discharge of his duty, 
and the culprit go unpunished ? Is language to 
be used here which would not be permitted to be 
used in the lowest pot-house, tavern, or oyster 
cellar, and for the use of which he would be turned 
out of any tavern by a decent landlord ? " Ben- 
ton's wrath had not in the least cooled since this 
altercation. Foote was on the floor, and in speak- 
ing of the late " Southern address," referred to 
Benton in terms which everybody understood. In 
an indirect way he became more and more personal 
as he proceeded. Col. Benton finally arose from 
his seat with every appearance of intense passion, 
and with a quick pace moved toward Foote, who 
was addressing the Senate from his desk near the 
main aisle. The Vice President demanded "order," 
and several senators tried to hold Benton back, 
but he broke loose from his keepers, and was 
moving rapidly upon his foe. When he saw Ben- 
ton nearing him, Foote sprang into the main aisle, 
and retreated toward the Vice President, present- 
ing a pistol as he fled, or, as he afterward expressed 
it, "advanced backward." In the meantime Ben- 
ton had been so obstructed by the sergeant-at-arms 
and others that Foote, if disposed to shoot, could 
not have done so without firing through the crowd. 
But Benton, with several senators hanging to him, 
now proceeded round the lobby so as to meet 
Foote at the opposite side of the Chamber. Tear- 
ing himself away from those who sought to hold 
him, and throwing open his bosom, he said : " Let 



92 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

him shoot me ! The cowardly assassin has come 
here to shoot me; let him shoot me if he dares! I 
never carry arms, and he knows it ; let the assassin 
fire ! " He was an embodied fury, and raged and 
raved, the helpless victim of his passions. I had 
never seen such an uproar in a legislative body ; 
but the sergeant-at-arms at last restored order, 
when Mr. Clay suggested that both parties should 
voluntarily enter into bonds to keep the peace, 
upon which Benton instantly rose and said : " I'll 
rot in jail, sir, before I will do it ! No, sir ! I'll rot 
in jail first. I'll rot, sir! " and he poured forth a 
fresh torrent of bitter words upon the man who 
was then so well known throughout the Northern 
States as " Hangman Foote." * Benton was not 
only a man of tremendous passions, but unrivaled 
as a hater. Nor did his hatred spend itself entirely 
upon injustice and meanness. It was largely person- 
al and unreasoning. He was pre-eminently unfor- 
giving. He hated Calhoun with a real vengeance, 
styling him " John Cat|^line Calhoun," and brand- 
ing him as a " coward cur that sneaked to his ken- 
nel when the Master of the Hermitage blew his 
bugle horn." He seemed to relent a little, how- 
ever, when he saw the life of the great Carolinian 
rapidly ebbing away, and on one occasion declared 
that, " When God lays his hand on a man, I take 

* So named because of his declaration in the Senate the year 
before, that if John P. Hale would come to Mississippi he would 
be hung to ** one of the tallest trees of the forest," and that he 
(Foote) would himself " assist in the operation." 



THE THIRTY-FIRSr CONGRESS. 



95 



mine off." His wit was sometimes as pungent as 
his invective. In his famous speech on the Com- 
promise measures, he gave Mr. Clay a teUing hit 
by comparing the boasted panacea of his "Omni- 
bus Bill," or " five old bills tacked together," to 
** old Dr. Jacob Townsend's sarsaparilla," and con- 
trasting it with the alleged worthlessness of the 
same measures when separately proposed, which 
he likened to ''young Dr. Samuel Townsend's" 
extract from the same vegetable. ** Sarsaparilla " 
was thus more widely advertised than ever before,, 
but it aided the triumph of the " young Dr.," and 
the defeat of Mr. Clay's pet scheme. 

The sudden death of Gen. Taylor, July 9, 1850, 
produced a very profound impression. The shock 
to the people of the Northern States was felt the 
more keenly because of the peculiarly threatening 
aspect of public affairs, and of the unexpectedly 
manly course of the President in withstanding the 
imperious and insolent demands of the extreme 
men of his own section. Millard Fillmore then 
stood well before the country, and was quite as 
emphatically committed to the growing anti-slavery 
sentiment of the Free States as Gov. Seward himself 
but he was now to be severely tried, and no one 
could tell whether he would be true to the policy 
of his predecessor in resisting the ultra demands of 
the South, or repeat the perfidy of John Tyler by 
flagrantly turning his back on his past life. For 
the time, however, the national bereavement seemed 
too absorbing for any political speculations. The 



94 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

funeral pageant, which took place on the 13th, was 
very imposing. The funeral car was a long- 
coupled running gear, with wheels carved from 
solid blocks ot wood. Over this was raised a- 
canopy covered with broadcloth, and surmounted 
by a magnificent eagle. Curtains of black and 
white silk in alternating festoons hung from the 
canopy, with rosettes, fringes, and tassels. The 
car was drawn by eight white horses, richly capar- 
isoned, and led by as many grooms, v^^ho were all 
white men. " Old Whitey," the venerable war 
steed of the President, followed immediately behind 
the remains of his master, and attracted universal 
attention. The procession was accompanied by the 
tolling of bells, the firing of heavy ordnance, and 
plaintive strains of music ; and the whole affair ex- 
ceeded anything of the kind that had ever taken 
place in Washington, although the outpouring of 
people would bear no comparison with that of 
several notable funerals of later years. 

The dreadful heat of the summer months, and 
the monotonous " ding-dong " of the debate on the 
Compromise measures, made life dreary enough. 
The " rump-session," as it was then called, became 
more and more dismal as it dragged its slow length 
into the fall months. Members grew pale and thin, 
and sighed for their homes; but the Congressional 
mill had to be kept running till the grists of the 
slave-power could be got fully ready for the hop- 
per, and ground in their regular order. Mr. Clay's 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 95 

Omnibus Bill having gone to pieces, the "five 
gaping wounds " of the country, about which he 
had talked so eloquently, called for treatment in 
detail ; and by far the most threatening of these 
was the dispute between Texas and New Mexico. 
The remedy was the Texas Boundary Bill, which 
surrendered a large belt of country to Texas and 
slavery, and gave her ten million dollars besides. 
It was vehemently opposed in the House, and its 
fate seemed to hang in doubt up to the final vote 
upon it; but its passage was really assured from the 
beginning by the corrupt appliances of its friends. 
Texas bonds, which were then worth ten cents on 
the dollar, would be lifted nearly to par by this 
measure, and its success was undoubtedly secured 
by the bribery of members. The territorial ques- 
tion was disposed of by the legislative covenant that 
new States might be admitted from our Mexican 
acquisitions, either with or without slavery, as their 
people might determine. This was not only an 
open abandonment of the Wilmot proviso, but a 
legislative condemnation of the Missouri compro- 
mise line, as a violation of the principle of "popu- 
lar sovereignty," and was sure to breed the mis- 
chiefs which followed four years later. But of the 
several compromise or "healing measures" of this 
session, the Fugitive Slave Bill was by far the most 
atrocious. It made the ex parte interested oath of 
the slave-hunter final and conclusive evidence of 
the fact of escape, and of the identity of the party 



96 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

pursued, while the simplest duties of humanity were 
punished as felonies by fine and imprisonment. 
The method of its enactment perfectly accorded 
with its character. It was reached on the Speaker's 
table on September 12th, and on motion of Mr. 
Thompson, of Pennsylvania, who served as the 
parliamentary hangman of his employers, the pre- 
vious question was seconded on its passage ; and 
thus, without reference to any committee, without 
even being printed, and with no opportunity what- 
ever for debate, it became a law. It is needless to 
say that these pretended measures of final adjust- 
ment paved the way for the repeal of the Missouri 
restriction, the bloody raid into Kansas, the Dred 
Scott decision, and the final chapter of the Civil 
War; while they completely vindicated the little 
party of Independents in this Congress in standing 
alooffrom the Whig and Democratic organizations^ 
and warning the country against further submission 
to their rrie. One hundred guns were fired in 
Washington over the final triumph of slavery in 
this memorable struggle ; and Congress adjourned, 
at last, on September 30th, the session having 
lasted nearly ten months, and being considerably 
the longest thus far since the formation of the Gov- 
ernment. 

The adjournment was followed by great " Union- 
saving " meetings throughout the country, which 
denounced "abolitionism " in the severest terms, 
and endorsed the action of Congress. Multitudes 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 97 

of " lower law " sermons by conservative Doctors 
of Divinity were scattered over the Northern States 
through the mails, and a regular system of agita- 
tion to suppress agitation was inaugurated. The 
sickly air of compromise filled the land, and for a 
time the deluded masses were made to believe that 
the Free Soilers had brought the country to the 
verge of ruin. Both clergy and laity zealously 
dedicated themselves to the great work of sectional 
pacification. The labors of Dr. Nehemiah Adams 
and Dr. Lord in this direction will not be forgotten. 
The Rev. Moses Stuart, of Andover Theological 
Seminary, in a work in the interest of peace, spoke 
of the " blessings and comforts" of slavery, and de- 
clared that " Christ doubtless felt that slavery 
might be made a very tolerable condition — aye, 
even a blessing — to such as were shiftless and help- 
less." Another book, entitled '* Aunt Phillis's 
Cabin ; or Southern Life as it is," was issued from 
the press, in which it was said that slavery was 
" authorized by God, permitted by Jesus Christ, 
sanctioned by the Apostles, and maintained by 
good men in all ages." A very remarkable book 
made its appearance, entitled, " A Choice of Evils ; 
or Thirteen Years in the South. By a Northern 
man." Its author was a Mr. Hooker, of Philadel- 
phia. In this work he announced the discovery that 
slavery is not only an unspeakable blessing, but a 
great " missionary institution for the conversion of 
the heathen." One of the chapters of this book is 



POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



on "The Pleasures of Slavery." He declared that 
the Southern slave is not merely contented, but a 
"joyous fellow " ; and that " in willing and faithful 
subjection to a benignant and protecting power, 
and that visible to his senses, he leans upon it in 
complete and sure confidence, as a trusting child 
holds on to the hand of his Father, and passes joy- 
ously along the thronged and jostling way, where 
he would not dare to be left alone." Mr. Hooker 
declared that " his are the thoughts that make glad 
the cared-for child, led by paternal hand " ; and 
that " of all people in the world, the pleasures of 
the Southern slaves seem, as they really are, most 
unalloyed." The press teemed with kindred pub- 
lications, while "Graham's Magazine," Harper's 
"Journal of Civilization," the *' Literary World," 
" Godey's Ladies' Book," and other periodicals, 
joined in the united effort to shout the anti-slavery 
agitation into silence. 

During this session some laws were passed hav- 
ing no connection with the slavery question, which 
were pregnant with very great mischief, and have 
only yielded up their meaning as they have been 
practically applied and extended. The act of Sep- 
tember 28th, granting land bounties to the soldiers 
of the Mexican war, opened the way for the monop- 
oly of many millions of acres of the public domain 
by sharks and speculators, while proving a wretched 
mockery of the just claims of the men in whose 
name it was urged. The Swamp Land Act of the 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 99 

same date, owing to its loose and unguarded provis- 
ions and shameful maladministration, has been 
still more fruitful of wide-spread spoliation and 
plunder. The act of September 20th, granting 
alternate sections of land in aid of the Illinois Cen- 
tral Railway, inaugurated our famous land-grant 
policy, which, becoming more and more reckless 
and improvident in its exactions, and cunningly 
combining the power of great corporations with 
vast monopolies of the public domain, has signally 
eclipsed all other schemes of commercial feudalism, 
and left to coming generations a problem involv- 
ing the very life of our popular institutions. The 
fruits of this legislation were not foreseen at the 
time, but the legislation itself fitly belongs to the 
extraordinary work of this Congress. 

The events of this session formed a new bond 
of union among anti-slavery men everywhere, 
and naturally strengthened the wish I had long 
cherished to meet some of the famous people with 
whose names I had been most familiar. Accord- 
ingly,! paid a visit to James and Lucretia Mott in 
Philadelphia, which I greatly enjoyed, meeting 
there Dr. Elder, J. Miller McKim, Dr. Furness, 
and other well known friends of freedom. Oddly 
enough, I was invited to dine with Judge Kane, 
then conspicuous through his remarkable rulings in 
fugitive slave cases, and I found his manners and hos- 
pitality as charming as his opinions about slavery 
were detestable. From Philadelphia I went to Bos- 



loo POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

ton, and attended the Free Soil State Convention 
which met there early in October, 1850, where Sum- 
ner and Burlingame were the principal speakers. 
The latter was extremely boyish in appearance, but 
was counted a marvel in native eloquence. Mr. 
Sumner was then comparatively a young man, 
apparently somewhat fastidious, with a winning 
face, commanding figure, and a voice singularly 
musical. At this time he was only famous through 
his orations, and I think knew relatively little of 
American life and society outside of Boston and 
his books. He told me he had recently been lect- 
uring at several points out of the city, and had 
been delighted to find the people so intelligent 
and so capable of understanding him. He seemed 
much surprised when I told him how many admir- 
ers he had in Indiana, and I found that others 
shared his unflattering impressions respecting the 
general intelligence of the West. At this conven- 
tion I met Dr. Palfrey, then actively interested in 
anti-slavery politics, and Charles Francis Adams, 
the Free Soil nominee for Vice President in 1848, 
with whom I dined at the old Adams mansion in 
Quincy a few days later. I enjoyed the honor of a 
call from Theodore Parker while in the city, but 
failed to meet Mr. -Garrison, who was absent. At 
the ** Liberator " office, however, I met Stephen S. 
Foster, who entertained me with his views on 
''non-resistance." I attended a spirited anti-fugi- 
tive-slave-law meeting in Lynn, where I first met 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 10 1 

Wendell Phillips, and enjoyed the long-coveted 
pleasure of hearing him speak. The music of his 
voice so charmed me that I became completely his 
captive. From Boston I went to Worcester, and 
after a delightful visit with my excellent friend, 
Judge Allen, returned to my home in the West. 

After a vacation of two months, the work of the 
Thirty-first Congress was resumed at the opening 
of its second session. Members returned so re- 
freshed and invigorated that they did not appear 
like the same men. All parties seemed more 
friendly, but the agitation of the slavery question 
had not been suppressed. Thousands of fugitive 
slaves had fled to Canada or to remote sections of 
the Northern States, through the fear of recapture 
under the harsh features of the new Fugitive Slave 
Act. The method of enforcing it in different 
States, involving the intervention of the army and 
navy, had stirred the blood of thousands who had 
else remained unmoved by the slavery issue. The 
effort of the National Government to make the 
harboring of a fugitive constructive treason, was 
the farthest thing possible from a peace-offering to 
the Abolitionists, but the friends of the Compro- 
mise measures failed to see that their scheme had 
proved entirely abortive, and made one further 
effort to silence the voice of humanity. They 
entered into a solemn compact in writing to sup- 
port no man for President or Vice President of the 
United States, or for senator or representative ' in 



I02 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

Congress, or member of a State legislature, who 
was not known to be opposed to disturbing their 
" final settlement " of the slavery question. The 
signature of Henry Clay was the first on this docu- 
ment, and was followed by those of various promi- 
nent men of the free and slave States, and of differ- 
ent political parties. But the extreme men of the 
South and most of the moderate men of the North 
refused to assume this obligation, while the Free 
Soilers felt perfectly sure that their cause would be 
advanced by the very measures which had been 
taken to defeat it. In this, they were not mistaken. 
" Uncle Tom's Cabin," born of the Fugitive Slave 
Act, was then making its first appearance in weekly 
numbers of Dr. Bailey's " National Era." Hil- 
dreth's "White Slave" and Sumner's "White 
Slavery in the Barbary States" were widely circu- 
lated, and exerted a powerful influence. The 
writings of Judge Jay and William Goodell on 
the slavery question found more readers than ever 
before, while the pro-slavery literature and " south 
side " theology, already referred to, called forth 
replies from various writers, and contributed largely 
to the general ferment which the friends of the 
Compromise measures were so anxious to tranquil- 
ize. Indeed, while the champions of slavery were 
exerting themselves as never before to stifle the 
anti-slavery spirit of the free States, the Abolition- 
ists were delighted with the tokens of progress 
which everywhere saluted their vision and ani- 
m ated them with new courage and hope. 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 103 

It was early in the first session of this Congress 
that several members of the House introduced 
bills providing homesteads of one hundred and 
sixty acres each to actual landless settlers, with- 
out cost, on prescribed conditions of occupancy 
and improvement. The first of these bills in the 
order of time was that of Andrew Johnson, which 
was referred to the Committee on Agriculture, and 
subsequently reported favorably, and debated at 
different times. Similar propositions were offered 
in the Senate by Mr. Webster, and by Senator 
Walker, of Wisconsin. The fact is also worthy of 
note, that Horace Greeley, during his short term 
of service in the previous Congress, had offered a 
bill giving to landless men the right to pre-empt 
one hundred and sixty acres for seven years, and, 
on condition of occupancy and improvement, the 
" right of unlimited occupancy " to forty acres of 
the same, without price, by a single man, or eighty 
acres by the married head of a family. But the 
legislative initiation of the Homestead law, sub- 
stantially as we now have it, belongs to the House 
of Representatives of the Thirty-first Congress, and 
its policy was borrowed from the Free Soil plat- 
form of 1848 and the Land Reformers of New York. 
This measure completely reversed the early policy 
of the Government, when settlers on the public 
lands were dealt with as trespassers, while its tri- 
umph, years afterv/ard, marked an epoch in our 
legislation, and has done more to make the Ameri- 



I04 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

can name honored and loved at home and abroad 
than any single enactment since the year 1789. 
Having earnestly espoused this policy years before, 
I sought the acquaintance of Mr. Johnson for the 
purpose of co-operating with him in urging it, 
and found him its sincere friend. Although loyal 
to his party, he seemed to have little sympathy 
with the extreme men among its leaders, and no 
unfriendliness to me on account of my decided 
anti-slavery opinions. When my homestead speech 
was ready for delivery, he was anxious that I 
should be recognized, although the slave-holders 
hated its doctrines as heartily as they hated 
** abolitionism " itself, and it was through his 
friendly tactics that I finally obtained the floor, in 
opposition to the earnest wish and determined 
purpose of Speaker Cobb. 

Near the close of this session, at the instance 
of Charles Allen, of Massachusetts, a man of real 
ability and stainless life, a preamble and resolutions 
were offered by myself calling for a committee to 
inquire into the alleged corrupt conduct of Daniel 
Webster in accepting the office of Secretary bf 
State as the stipendiary of Eastern capitalists. 
On the motion to suspend the rules to allow this 
to be done, the yeas were only thirty-five; but this 
vote was quite as large as could have been expected, 
considering the excellent standing of Mr. Webster 
at that time with the pro-slavery sentiment of the 
country. I think it is not doubted that, being 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 1 05 

then poor, he accepted office, as he had done be- 
fore, on condition of pecuniary indemnity by his 
rich friends in Wall street and State street; but in 
the light of the far greater immoralities and profli- 
gacies of later times, it now seems a relatively 
small matter. 

Political morality was at a very low ebb duf^ng 
the period covered by the Thirty-first Congress. 
The Whigs, now that they were in power, saw 
nothing amiss in the spoils system inaugurated by 
Gen. Jackson, which was in full blast. The Presi- 
dent had declared that he had " no friends to reward 
and no enemies to punish," but under the party 
pressure he totally lost sight of these words, and 
seemed almost as powerless to withstand it as did 
Gen. Grant in later years. Thousands of officials 
were turned adrift for no other than party reasons, 
while political nepotism was the order of the day. 
Under the brief administration of Gen. Taylor, un- 
precedented political jobbery prevailed, both in the 
legislative and executive departments of the Govern- 
ment, and these evils seemed to be aggravated by 
the accession of Mr. Fillmore, and to gather strength 
as the spirit of liberty declined. Nor was the per- 
sonal morality of members more to be commended 
than their political. The vice of intemperance was 
not, as now, restricted to a few exceptional cases, 
but was fearfully prevalent. A glass of wine could 
sometimes be seen on the desk of a senator while 
engaged in debate, and the free use of intoxicating 



I06 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

drinks by senators was too common to provoke 
remark. It was still more common in the House; 
and the scenes of drunkenness and disorder in that 
body on the last night of the last session beggared 
description. Much of the most important legisla- 
tion of the session, involving the expenditure of 
many millions, remained to be disposed of at 
that sitting; and, as a preparation for the work, 
a large supply of whisky had been deposited 
in a room immediately connected with the 
Hall of Representatives, which was thronged 
by members at all hours of the night. The 
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee 
became so exhilarated that he had to be retired 
from his post; and some of his brethren, who had 
been calling him to order in a most disorderly 
manner, were quite as incapable of business as him- 
self, while order had sought her worshipers else- 
where. The exhibition was most humiliating, but 
it now pleasantly reminds us of the wonderful 
changes which have been wrought by thirty years. 
In this Congress, the m.en who afterward became 
the chief leaders of the Rebellion were conspicuous, 
and foreshadowed their future course. Jefferson 
Davis had a military and magisterial look. His 
estimate of himself was so exalted that his ordinary 
demeanor toward others seemed like a personal 
condescension, if not an insinuation of contempt. 
One of the most striking personalities in the Senate 
was A. P. Butler, the colleague of Mr. Calhoun, 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 10/ 

and uncle of Preston S. Brooks, of infamous mem- 
ory. His robust ph3^sique, florid complexion, 
sparkling eye, heavy bushy suit of snow-white hair, 
and a certain indefinable expression of mischievous 
audacity, made him a very attractive figure. In his 
eulogy upon Calhoun he marred the solemnity of 
the occasion by pronouncing the word " always" as 
if written " allers," and by kindred evidences of 
"life among the lowly." The wit of John P. Hale 
was effective and unfailing, and gave him a decided 
advantage over Mr. Chase, who had nothing but 
his dignity and power of argument with which to 
confront the tremendous odds against him. This 
was happily illustrated early in the first session of 
this Congress, in his reply to Mr. Clemens, of 
Alabama, who, in a furious tirade against the Abo- 
litionists, had pronounced the Union dissolved 
already. " There are many timid people at the 
North," said Hale, " who have looked forward with 
excited nerves and trembling fears at the ' wreck 
of matter and the crush of worlds ' which they 
believed would be the result of the dissolution of 
this Union. I think they will be exceedingly 
quiet now, when they find it has already taken 
place and they did not know it, for the honorable 
senator from Alabama tells us it is already dis- 
solved. If it is not a matter too serious for a pleas- 
ant illustration, let me give you one. Once in my 
hfe, in the capacity of a justice of the peace — for I 
held that office before I was a senator — I was 



I08 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

called on to officiate in uniting a couple in the 
bonds of matrimony. They came up, and I made 
short work of it. I asked the man if he would take 
the woman whom he held by the hand to be his 
wedded wife ; he replied, ' To be sure I will, I came 
here to do that very thing.' I then put the ques- 
tion to the lady, whether she would have the man 
for her husband. And when she answered in the 
affirmative, I told them they were man and wife. 
She looked up with apparent astonishment, and 
inquired ' Is that all ?' * Yes,' I said, * that is all.' 
* Well,' said she, * it is not such a mighty affair as 
I expected it to be, after all.' " 

Some of the finest of Mr. Seward's speeches 
were delivered during the first session of this Con- 
gress, but in the same husky voice which marked 
his later efforts. Decidedly the finest looking man 
in the Senate was General Shields, of Illinois, then 
in his prime, and crowned with the laurels he had 
won in the Mexican War. The appearance of Mr. 
Douglas, familiarly known as the "little giant," 
was in striking contrast with that of his colleague. 
He cared nothing about dignity and refinement, 
and had a slovenly and " unwashed " appearance. 
The towering and erect form of General Houston 
always commanded attention in the Senate, and he 
added to his attractiveness by wearing an old- 
fashioned knit cap, and always devoting a portion 
of his time to whittling a pine board. The most 
fascinating member of the Senate was Soule, of 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 109 

Louisiana. There was a tropical charm about his 
oratory, which was heightened by his foreign ac- 
cent and his singularly striking presence and 
physiognomy. Winthrop was the most accom- 
plished gentleman in the House. Edward D. Ba- 
ker, since so famous, was a member from Illinois, 
but made no mark. Stephens, of Georgia, looked 
like a corpse, but his clear and ringing voice al- 
ways commanded attention, and his words went 
directly to the mark. Toombs was recognized as 
a leader of Southern opinion, but disfigured his 
speeches by his swagger and defiance. Among 
the notable men from the Northern States, Hanni- 
bal Hamlin, lately retired from public life, was in 
the Senate. He was then a young man, erect, fine 
looking, a thorough Democrat, but not the tool of 
slavery. 'Thaddeus Stevens was in the House, and 
just at the beginning of his remarkable congres- 
sional life ; but the slave power, then in the full 
sweep of its despotism, took good care to keep 
him in the background in the organization of the 
committees. He made several speeches, in which 
he displayed his rare powers of invective, irony? 
and sarcasm, in dealing with the Southern lead- 
ers ; and no one who listened to his speech of Feb. 
20, 1850, could ever forget his withering reply to 
Mr. Mead of Virginia, who had argued against the 
prohibition of slavery in the Territories because it 
would conflict with the interests of Virginia as a 
breeder of slaves. I quote the following: 



/V^ 



I lo POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

" Let us pause a moment over this humiliating 
confession. In plain English, what does it mean ? 
That Virginia is now only fit to be the breeder, not 
the employer, of slaves ! That she is reduced to 
the condition that her proud chivalry are compelled 
to turn slave-traders for a livelihood ! Instead 
of attempting to renovate the soil, and by their 
own honest labor compelling the earth to yield her 
abundance; instead of seeking for the best breed 
of cattle and horses to feed on her hills and val- 
leys, and fertilize the land, the sons of that great 
State must devote their time to selecting and groom- 
ing the most lusty sii-es and the most fruitful 
wenches, to supply the slave barracoons of the 
South! And the learned gentleman pathetically 
laments that the profits of this genteel traffic will 
be greatly lessened by the circumscription of slav- 
ery ! This is his picture, not mine." 

Mr. Stevens was equally merciless in dealing 
with the tribe of " dough-faces." This was illus- 
trated in a speech later in the session, in which he 
alluded to his colleague from Bucks County, 
Mr. Ross, who had attacked him in a violent pro- 
slavery harangue : 

"There is," said Mr. Stevens, ^' in the natural 
world, a little, spotted, contemptible animal, which 
is armed by nature with a fetid, volatile, penetrat- 
ing virus^ which so pollutes whoever attacks it as 
to make him offensive to himself and all around 
him for a long time. Indeed, he is almost incapa- 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. \\\ 

ble of purification. Nothing, sir, no insult, shall 
provoke me to crush so filthy a beast." As these 
words were being uttered, Mr. Ross was seen pre- 
cipitately making his way out of the hall under 
this return fire of his foe. But Mr. Stevens then 
gave no clear promise of the wonderful career as a 
parliamentary leader which awaited him in later 
years, when perfectly unshackled by the power 
that at first held him in check. 

The Thirty-first Congress was not alone remark- 
able for the great questions it confronted and its 
shameless recreancy to humanity and justice; it 
was equally remarkable for its able and eminent 
men. In the Senate, the great triumvirate of 
Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, appeared in public 
life for the last time. With them were associated 
Benton, Cass, Douglas, Seward, Chase, Bell, 
Berrien, Soule, Davis of Mississippi, Dayton, Hale, 
Ewing, Corwin, Hamlin, Butler, Houston, and 
Mason. In the House were Thaddeus Stevens, 
Winthrop, Ashmun, Allen, Cobb of Georgia, 
McDowell, Giddings, Preston King, Horace Mann, 
Marshall, Orr, Schenck, Stanley, Toombs, Alexan- 
der H. Stephens, and Vinton. If jneretalent could 
have supplemented the lack of conscience, the ' ' 
slave power might have been overborne in 1850, /' \ 
and the current of American history turned into 1 
the channels of liberty and peace. But the better 
days of the Republic, when high integrity and un-, 
selfish devotion to the country inspired our states- 




/ 






112 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

men, were past, and we had entered upon the era 
of mean ambitions and huckstering politics. "The 
bulk of the nation," as Harriet Martineau said, a 
little later, " was below its institutions," and our 
fathers " had laid down a loftier program than their 
successors were able to fulfill." It was not strange, 
therefore, that the little band of Free Soilers in this 
Congress encountered popular obloquy and social 
outlawry at the Capital. Their position was offen- 
sive, because it rebuked the ruling influences of the 
times, and summoned the real manhood of the 
country to its rescue. They were treated as pesti- 
lent fanatics because they bravely held up the ideal 
of the Republic, and sought to make it real. But 
they pressed forward along the path of their aspi- 
rations. They found a solace for their social ostra- 
cism in delightful gatherings which assembled 
weekly at the residence of Dr. Bailey, where they 
met philanthropists, reformers, and literary nota- 
bles. They had the courage of their opinions, and 
the genuine satisfaction which accompanies manli- 
ness of character; and they lived to see their prin- 
ciples vindicated, and the political and social tables 
turned upon the men who had honored them by 
their scorn and contempt. The anti-slavery revolt 
of 1848, which they represented, saved Oregon 
from slavery, made California a free State, and 
launched the policy of free homes on the public 
domain which finally prevailed in 1862 ; and it was 
the prophecy and parent of the larger movement 



THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. 1 13 

which ralh'ed under Fremont in 1856, elected Lin- 
coln in i860, and ])layed its grand part in saving 
the nation from destruction by the armed insurgents 
whom it had vanquished at the ballot-box This 
will be the sure award of history ; but history will 
find another parentage for the party despotism and 
political corruption which have since disgraced the 
administration of the Government. 



r 






CHAPTER VI. 

THE EVOLUTION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Pro-slavery reaction — Indiana and Ohio — Race for Congress — 
Free Soil gains in other States — National Convention at Cleve- 
land — National canvass of 1852 — Nomination of Pierce and 
Scott, and the " finality " platforms — Free Soil National Con- 
vention — Nomination of Hale — Samuel Lewis — The Whig 
canvass — Webster — Canvass of the Democrats — Return of 
New York " Barnburners " to the party — The Free Soil cam- 
paign — Stumping Kentucky with Clay — Rev. John G. Fee — 
Incidents — Mob law in Indiana — Result of the canvass — 
Ruin of the Whigs — Disheartening facts — The other side of 
the picture. 

The reaction which followed the passage of the 
compromise acts of 1850 was quite as remarkable 
as the anti-slavery revolt of 1848. which fright- 
ened the champions of slavery into the espousal 
of these desperate measures. Immense meetings 
were held in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and 
other cities and towns throughout the country, in 
which leading Whigs and Democrats united in 
pledging themselves to make the suppression of 
abolitionism paramount to any question of party 
allegiance. These demonstrations were vigorous- 
ly seconded by leading clergymen and doctors of 
divinity, whose sermons were plentifully scattered 
over the land under the frank of members of Con- 

(114) 



THE REPUBLICAN PAR TY. 1 1 5 

gress and otherwise. The press put forth its whole 
power on the side of anti-slavery submission and 
peace, while the Executive and Judicial depart- 
ments of the Government made haste to abase 
themselves by their super-serviceable zeal in the en- 
forcement of the new Fugitive Slave law. The 
tables seemed to be completely turned, and the 
time-honored rule of our slave-masters impregna- 
bly re-established. The anti-slavery commotion 
which a little while before had rocked the country 
from one end of the Union to the other was hushed 
in the restored order which succeeded, and gave 
promise of that longed-for *' finality " for which the 
two great parties had so ardently labored. 

In no section of the non-slaveholding States was 
this reaction more strikingly felt than in the West, 
and especially in Illinois and Indiana. These 
States were outlying provinces of the empire of 
slavery. Their black codes and large Southern 
population bore witness to their perfect loyalty to 
slave-holding traditions. Indiana, while a Territory, 
had repeatedly sought the introduction of slavery 
into her borders. Her black laws had disfigured 
her legislation from the beginning, and in 1850 were 
made still blacker by her new Constitution, the 
13th article of which, forbidding negroes from 
coming into the State and white men from en- 
couraging them to remain, was submitted to the 
people separately, and ratified by a popular major- 
ity of nearly ninety thousand votes. Ten years 



1 1 6 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

before, in the Harrison campaign, Mr. Bigger, the 
Whig candidate for Governor, made himself very- 
popular by proving that Van Buren had favored 
negro suffrage in New York. In 1842, four of the 
Indiana delegation in Congress — namely, Lane, 
Wallace, Thompson, and Kennedy — voted for the 
censure of Mr. Giddings, which Mr. Clay indig- 
nantly denounced at the time, and two only — 
namely, White, and Cravens — voted in the negative. 
Although the execution of the Fugitive Slave Act 
of 1793 was a matter of Federal cognizance ex- 
clusively, yet the State code made the harboring 
of a fugitive an offense against its peace and dig- 
nity, punishable by fine and imprisonment. The 
colored people were denied any share in the school 
fund, but were taxed for its support ; and under the 
law forbidding them to testify in cases where white 
men were parties, they were at the mercy of any 
white villain who might take the precaution to perpe- 
trate an outrage upon them in the absence of white 
witnesses. Of course, the organization of an anti- 
slavery party strong enough to rule such States as 
these, was to be the work of time, toil, and patience. 
It was only possible to lay the foundation, and 
build as the material could be commanded;! but 
the Free Soilers, whether in the East or m the 
West, were undismayed by the crisis, and fully 
resolved upon keeping up the fight. In compliance 
with the wishes of my anti-slavery friends, and by 
way of doing my part in the work, I decided to 



THE REPUBLICAN PAR TV. ny 

stand for a re-election from the Fourth Indiana Dis- 
trict in the spring of 185 1. The Wilmot proviso 
Democrats who had been chosen with me two 
years before on the strength of their Free Soil 
pledges, including such men as Joseph E. McDon- 
ald and Graham N. Fitch, now stood squarely on 
the Compromise measures. 

The Whigs of the State, following the lead of 
Webster and Clay, and including Edward W. Mc- 
Gaughey, their only delegate in Congress, had also 
completely changed their base. My competitor, 
Samuel W. Parker, whom I had defeated two years 
before, and who had then insisted that the Whigs 
were better anti-slavery men than the Free Soilers 
themselves, now made a complete somersault, fully 
committing himself to the Compromise acts, and 
especially the Fugitive Slave law, which he declared 
he approved without changing the dotting of an z 
or the crossing of a L Foote, Cass, and Webster 
were now the oracles of the Whig faith ; but, oddly 
enough, the Democrats, who had formed by far the 
larger portion of my support two years before, now 
stood firm, and I would undoubtedly have been re- 
elected but for very vigorous outside interference. 
Wm. J. Brown, who had intrigued with the leading 
Free Soilers for the Speakership in 1849, as I have 
already shown, and favored the passage of the Wil- 
mot proviso in order to " stick it at old Zach," was 
now the editor of the "Sentinel," the State organ of 
the Democracy, which was sufficiently orthodox on 



Il8 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the slavery question to pass muster in South Car- 
ohna. It was this organ which afterward insisted 
that my abolitionism entitled me to at least five 
years service at hard labor in the penitentiary^ Mr. 
Brown's dread of this fearful heresy seemed as in- 
tense as it was unbounded, and he resolved, at all 
hazards, to avert any further alliance with it by Dem- 
ocrats in any portion of the State. By very hard 
work and the most unscrupulous expedients he suc- 
ceeded in enlisting a few ambitious local magnates of 
his party in the district, who were fully in sympathy 
with his spirit and aims, and of whom Oliver P. 
Morton was the chief; and by thus drawing away 
from the democracy from two to three hundred pro- 
slavery malcontents and turning them over to my 
Whig competitor, my defeat was accomplished. 

But the effort to stem the tide of slavery fared 
better elsewhere. While Mr. Webster was pub- 
licly ridiculing the "' higher law," and blurting his 
contempt upon one of the noted anti-slavery strong- 
holds of the country as " a laboratory of abolition- 
ism, libel, and treason," Massachusetts sent Charles 
Sumner to the Senate of the United States, and 
elected Horace Mann, Charles Allen and Robert 
Rantoul as members of the House, Amos Tuck 
was returned from New Hampshire, Preston King 
from New York, Thaddeus Stevens and John W. 
Howe from Pennsylvania, Charles Durkee from 
Wisconsin, and Giddings and Townsend from Ohio. 
These events were exceedingly gratifying, and lent 



THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 



119 



new life to the cause throughoutthe Northern States. 
During the summer of this year Mr. Sumner moved 
the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, and although 
it received but ten votes, it led to an angry and 
protracted discussion, which showed how signally 
the attempt to suppress anti-slavery agitation had 
failed. In the latter part of September of this 
year a Free Soil National Convention met at Cleve- 
land, to take into consideration the state of the 
country and the duty of anti-slavery men. It was 
large and enthusiastic. It adopted a series of 
spirited resolutions and a timely public address, and 
admirable speeches were made by Cassius M. Clay, 
Joshua R. Giddings, Samuel Lewis, George Brad- 
burn, and others. The only drawback to the pre- 
vailing spirit of hopefulness and courage was the 
absence of Mr. Chase, who had just withdrawn 
from the Free Soil party and united his fortunes 
with the Democrats of Ohio, who had adopted a 
platform which admitted an interpretation covering, 
substantially, the principles of the Free Soil creed. 
As the time for another Presidential election drew 
near, Whigs and Democrats were alike engrossed 
with the consideration of their " final settlement " 
of the slavery question, and their attitude respect- 
ing it in the impending struggle. Among the lat- 
ter there was substantially no division. Their ex- 
perience in 1848 with Gen. Cass and his "Nichol- 
son letter," had convinced them that nothing was 
to be gained by mincing matters, and that a hearty, 



120 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

complete and unhesitating surrender to slavery was 
the surest means of success. The Democrats in 
Congress, both North and South, had very gen- 
erally favored this " settlement," and there was now 
no division in the party except as to men. The 
candidates were Cass, Buchanan, Douglas, and 
Marcy ; and the National Convention assembled on 
the first of June. The platform of the party began 
with the declaration of its " trust in the intelligence, 
the patriotism, and the discriminating justice of 
the American people "; and then, in the fourth 
and fifth resolutions, pronounced the Fugitive Slave 
Act equally sacred with the Constitution, and 
pledged the party to " resist all attempts at renew- 
ing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the 
slavery question, under whatever shape or color the 
attempt may be made." So far as slavery was con- 
cerned it thus became a recognized and authorita- 
tive principle of American Democracy to muzzle 
the press and crush out the freedom of speech, as 
the means of upholding and perpetuating its power. 
On this platform Franklin Pierce was nominated on 
the forty-ninth ballot; and in his letter of accept- 
ance he declared that " the principles it embraces 
command the approbation of my judgment, and 
with them I believe I can safely say that no word 
nor act of my life is in conflict." It is difificult to 
conceive of any words by which he could more 
completely have abdicated his manhood and self- 
respect, and sounded the knell of his own con- 



THE REPUBLICAN PAR TY. 1 2 1 

science. There was no lower deep, and he was evi- 
dently the right man in the right place. 

The Whig National Convention assembled on 
the sixteenth of June, with Scott, Fillmore and 
Webster as the candidates. There was yet a con- 
siderable anti-slavery element in the party, but it 
was paralyzed and powerless. It had made a fatal 
mistake in submitting to the nomination of Gen. 
Taylor, and became still more completely demoral- 
ized by the accession of Fillmore, who turned his 
back upon his past life, and threw himself into the 
arms of the slave-holders. The old party had gone 
astray too long and too far to return, and now de- 
termined to seek its fortunes in the desperate 
effort to outdo the Democrats in cringing servility 
to the South. The platform of the Convention 
expressed the reliance of the Whigs " upon the in- 
telligence of the American people," but in its 
eighth resolution declared their acquiescence in the 
Compromise Acts of 1850 " as a final settlement, in 
principle and substance, of the subjects to which 
they relate " ; and it deprecated " all further agita- 
tion of the questions thus settled, as dangerous to 
our peace," and pledged the party " to discounte- 
nance all efforts to continue or renew such agitation, 
whenever, wherever, or however made." On this 
platform, which is well understood to have been the 
work of Mr. Webster, Gen. Scott was nominated on 
the fifty-ninth ballot by a vote of two hundred and 
twenty-seven to sixty-six, while the highest vote 



122 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

received by Mr. Webster was twenty-nine. Here 
at last, the Whig party had made a complete sur- 
render of its integrity, and verified all that had ever 
been said by Free Soilers as to its treachery to free- 
dom ; and here, finally, these rival parties were 
tumbled together into the ditch of slavery, and 
wallowing in the mire of their degradation and 
shame. The only issue of the canvass was slavery, 
and on this they were perfectly agreed, while each, 
for the sake of the spoils of office, was trying to 
surpass the other in the damning proofs of its 
treason to humanity and its contempt for the fun- 
damental truths of republican government. 

The spectacle was most pitiably humiliating, but 
I counted it an omen of progress. The old parties 
were now unequivocally committed to the policy of 
nationalizing the sectional interest of slavery, and 
the way thus opened for a fair fight. The lines 
were clearly drawn, and the issue unmistakably 
made between freedom and free speech on the one 
side, and slavery and the gag on the other. I 
thought we should have no more anti-slavery pro- 
fessions from Whigs and Democrats, no further 
courting of Free Soilers, and no more mutual up- 
braidings of servility to the South; and that thus 
the way would be smoothed for intelligent and ef- 
fective anti-slavery work. 

The Free Soil National Convention met in Pitts- 
burg on the eleventh of August, and I believe an 
assemblage of purer men never convened for any 



THE REP UBLICAN PA RTY. 123 

political purpose. All the compromising and 
trading elements that had drifted into the move- 
ment in 1848 had now gravitated back to the old 
parties, leaving a residuum of permanent adherents 
of the cause, who were perfectly ready to brave the 
frowns of public opinion and the proscription and 
wrath of the old parties. Henry Wilson was made 
president of the convention, and the platform 
adopted was substantially that of 1848. A few ad- 
ditional resolves, however, were added, including 
the declaration " that emigrants and exiles from 
the old world should find a cordial welcome to 
homes of comfort and fields of enterprise in the 
new," and that " every attempt to abridge their 
privilege of becoming citizens and owners of the 
soil among us ought to be resisted with inflexible 
determination." It was also declared "that the 
Free Democratic party was not organized to aid 
either the Whig or Democratic wing- of the great 
Slave Compromise party of the Nation, but to 
defeat them both ; and that, repudiating and re- 
nouncing both as hopelessly corrupt and utterly 
unworthy of confidence, the purpose of the Free 
Democracy is to take possession of the Federal 
Government, and administer it for the better pro- 
tection of the rights and interests of the whole 
people." On this platform John P. Hale was nom- 
inated for the Presidency. My own nomination 
for the second place on the ticket was to me a com- 
plete surprise. I fully expected this honor would 



124 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

fall upon Samuel Lewis, of Ohio, and the delega- 
tion from my own State was unitedly for him. He 
coveted the nomination, and so did his many de- 
voted friends, simply as a fitting recognition of his 
faithful service in the cause of freedom, to which he 
had been unselfishly devoted since the year 1841. 
He had made himself a public benefactor by his 
long and powerful championship of the cause of 
education in Ohio. He was a man of brains, and 
enthusiastically devoted to every woik of practical 
philanthropy and reform. As an impassioned, 
eloquent, and effective popular orator, he had no 
equal in the country. His profound earnestness, 
perfect sincerity, and religious fervor conquered all 
hearts, and made his anti-slavery appeals irresistible. 
He was a strong and brave old man, w4io richly 
deserved whatever distinction his nomination could 
confer ; but for reasons unknown to me he encoun- 
tered in the convention the formidable opposition 
of Mr. Chase, and he wrote me very touchingly 
a few days afterward that " among the thousands 
who have given their lives and fortunes to this 
cause, my name will be forgotten, while those who 
have coolly stood by and watched the signs of the 
times, and filled their sails with the wind that others 
have raised, will go down to history as heroes and 
martyrs in a cause for which they never fought a 
battle nor suffered a sacrifice." 

The canvass of the Whigs was totally without 
heart or enthusiasm. The Southern wing of the 



THE REPUBLICAN PAR TV. 125 

party had dictated the platform, but did not like 
Gen. Scott. Stephens and Toombs, of Georgia, 
and Jones and Gentry, of Tennessee, refused to 
support him. The Northern Whigs were greatly 
embarrassed, and while they felt constrained to sup- 
port the candidate, tried to relieve their consciences 
by " spitting upon the platform" on which he stood. 
Mr. Webster did not disguise his hostility to the 
ticket, and predicted the speedy dissolution of the 
party. The Democrats were united in this con- 
test. Notwithstanding their atrocious platform 
they succeeded in persuading the leading Barn- 
burners of 1848 to return to the party and muster 
again in the army of slavery. Dix, the Van Burens, 
David Dudley Field, Tilden, and a host of others, 
including even Robert Rantoul and Preston King, 
were now fighting for Pierce, while Bryant's " Eveq- 
ing Post " and Greeley's " Tribune " cravenly sub- 
mitted to the shackles of slavery. In the light of 
such facts as these it was easy to forecast the result 
of the contest. 

The real enthusiasm of this campaign was in the 
ranks of the Free Soilers. They had, of course, 
no dream of success, or even of carrying a single 
electoral vote ; but they were profoundly in earnest, 
and united as one man against the combination of 
the old parties in behalf of slavery. I took the 
stump, and early in the campaign accepted an in- 
vitation to join Cassius M. Clay in the canvass of 
the counties of Lewis, Bracken, and Mason, in 



126 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

Kentucky. Oa my way to our first appointment I 
stopped at Maysville, where I found myself in the 
midst of a considerable excitement about some 
thirty or forty slaves who had just crossed the Ohio 
on their way to Canada. I met Mr. Clay at the 
residence of the Rev. John G. Fee, some eight miles 
distant in Lewis county, where we talked over the 
plan of our campaign. Mr. Fee was the founder 
of an anti-slavery colony, a free school, and a free 
church, in that region, and was a scholar, philan- 
thropist, and reformer. His whole heart was in 
the anti-slavery cause, and his courage had never 
failed him in facing the ruffianism and brutality 
which slavery employed in its service ; but I would 
not have felt very safe in this enterprise without the 
presence of Mr. Clay, who was known in Kentucky, 
and everywhere else, as " a fighting Christian," 
who would defend the freedom of speech at any 
hazard. Our first meeting was in Mr. Fee's 
church, in the rocky and mountainous region of 
the county, where we had perfect order and an at- 
tentive and sympathetic audience. From this 
point we proceeded the next day to our appoint- 
ment in Maysville, finding a good deal of excite- 
ment in the city as to the propriety of allowing us 
to speak in the court house. It was finally thrown 
open to us, and in the afternoon I was handsomely 
introduced by Mr. Clay to a fine audience, speak- 
ing at length, and with great plainness, on the 
issues of the canvass, and being frequently ap- 



THE REP I ^BLICA N PARTY. 127 

plauded. Mr. Clay spoke at night to a still larger 
audience, while perfect order prevailed. So far our 
success seemed gratifying, and Mr. Fee was de- 
lighted ; and we proceeded the following morning 
to our next appointment at Brooksville, in Bracken 
county. Here we found assembled a large crowd 
of that brutalized rabble element which formed the 
background of slavery everywhere. The aboriginal 
creatures gazed at us like so many wild animals, 
but showed not the slightest disposition to enter 
the house in which we were to speak. Mr. Clay 
remarked that they must be Whigs, since they did 
not seem inclined to " resist," but only to ** discoun- 
tenance " our agitation ; but we had come to speak, 
and with Mr. Fee's family and a few friends who 
had come with us for an audience, we spoke about 
an hour and a half each, just as if the house had 
been filled. A few straggled in during the speak- 
ing, and several hung about the windows and list- 
ened, though they tried to seem not to do so ; but 
the most remarkable and praiseworthy thing about / 
this congregation of Yahoos was that they did not/ 
mob us. It must have seemed to them a strange 
waste of power to spare such notorious disturbers 
of the peace, and return to theJ' homes without 
an>' laurels. This ended our work in Kentucky, 
where we could boast that the "finality" platform 
had been openly set at defiance, and I returned to 
my work on the other side of the Ohio. 

Later in the canvass, on my return from Wiscon- 



128 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

sin and Illinois, I learned that Andrew L. Rob- 
inson, the Free Soil candidate for Governor of 
Indiana, had been mobbed in the city of Terre 
Haute, and prevented from making an anti-slavery 
speech. This was not surprising, as this section 
of the State was largely settled by people from 
Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky, who were as 
intolerant of abolitionism as those of Bracken 
county already described. I immediately sent a 
telegram making an appointment to speak in that 
city, and on the day appointed reported for duty. 
I found my friends uneasy and apprehensive. They 
evidently regretted my coming, and some of them 
advised me quietly to return home. The town 
was full of rumors that I was not to be allowed to 
speak, and was to be " wabashed," as the rowdies 
phrased it. But I had no thought of returning 
without being heard ; and accordingly, at the ap- 
pointed hour, I repaired to the court house, where 
I found a small crowd assembled, with restless 
countenances, and a gang of ruffians outside, 
armed with stones and brickbats. The audience 
gradually increased, and as I began to speak I 
noticed that the roughs themselves began to listen, 
Avhich they continued to do during the hour and a 
half I devoted to the most unmistakable utterances 
on the slavery question. The ringleader of the 
mob, for some reason, failed to give the signal of 
attack, and free speech was vindicated. Timid men 
grew brave, and boasted of the love of order that 



rilE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 1 29 

had prompted the people of the town to stand by my 
rights ; yet the mob would probably have triumphed 
but for the presence of Joseph O. Jones, the post- 
master of the city, himself a Kentuckian, but a 
believer in the right of free speech and the duty of 
defending it at all hazards. 

The result of this Presidential canvass was a sur- 
prise to all parties. The triumph of the Democrats 
was anticipated, but it was far more signal than 
they expected. Pierce received two hundred and 
fifty-four electoral votes, and Scott only forty-two, 
representing only four States of the Union. So 
far as the Whig party was concerned, the result 
was overwhelming and ffnal. The party was bur- 
ied forever in the grave it had dug for itself Hale 
received a little more than one hundred and fifty- 
six thousand votes^ being about one-twentieth -of 
the entire popular vote cast at this election ; so that 
nineteen-twentieths of the people of the United 
States in 1852, and only a little more than a dozen 
years before slavery was swept from the land, voted 
themselves bound and dumb before this Moloch of 
American politics, while only one-twentieth had 
the courage to claim their souls as their own. 
These were very startling facts after more than a 
quarter of a century of anti-slavery agitation, and 
they were naturally interpreted by the victorious 
party everywhere as clearly foreshadowing the 
complete triumph of the " final settlement " made 
by Congress in 1850. Certainly they seemed very 
9 



130 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

disheartening to anti- slavery men ; for, however con- 
fidently they might believe in the final success of 
their struggle, they could not fail to see the im- 
mense odds and fearful obstacles against which 
they would have to contend. The debauched 
masses who had been molded and kneaded by the 
plastic touch of slavery into such base uses, were 
the only possible material from which recruits 
could be drawn for a great party of the future, 
which should regenerate our politics and re-en- 
throne the love of liberty; and this should be re- 
membered in estimating the courage and faith of the 
men who in that dark hour held aloft the banner 
of freedom, in spite of all temptations to go with 
the multitude. 

•="^But there was another view of the situation 
which thoughtful anti-slavery men did -not fail to 
enforce. The overwhelming triumph of Pierce 
was not an unmixed victory for slavery. It had 
another explanation. It was to be remembered, to 
the credit of the Whig party, that thousands of its 
members, notwithstanding their dislike of Pierce 
and their admiration of Gen. Scott as a man and a 
soldier, and despite the attempted drill of their 
leaders and the influence of Greeley and Seward, 
could not be induced to support the ticket, and 
were now ready for further acts of independence. 
It was likewise to be remembered that in the com- 
plete rout and ruin of the party a great obstacle to 
anti-slavery progress had been removed. The 



THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 131 

slave-holders at once recognized this fact. They 
had aimed to defeat the party, not to annihilate it. 
They saw clearly that what slavery needed was 
two pretty evenly divided parties, pitted against 
each other upon economic issues, so that under 
cover of their strife it could be allowed to have its 
way; and they were justly alarmed at the prospect 
of a new movement, basing its action upon moral 
grounds, and gathering into its ranks the un- 
shackled conscience and intelligence of the North- 
ern States. The *' Washington Union," then the 
National organ of the Democracy, deplored the 
death of the Whig party, and earnestly hoped for 
its resurrection. The fact had always been patent 
to anti-slavery men that these parties were alike 
the bulwarks of slavery, since the Southern wing 
of each gave law to the whole body, and that until 
one or the other could be totally destroyed, a really 
formidable anti-slavery party was impossible. 
There was also great cause for encouragement in 
the evident signs of a growing anti-slavery public 
opinion. " Uncle Tom's Cabin " had found its way 
to the million on both sides of the Atlantic, and the 
rage for it among all classes was without parallel 
in the history of literature. It was served up for 
the masses in sixpenny editions, dramatized and 
acted on the stage, and coined into poetry and 
song. Slave-holders were alarmed at its wonderful 
success, because they saw the grand part it was 
playing in creating that "public opinion of the 



132 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

civilized world" which Mr. Webster had declared to 
be " the mightiest power on earth." The replies to 
this wonderful book, and the anti-slavery and pro- 
slavery literature to which it gave birth, largely 
contributed to the progress of freedom, and the 
final repudiation of the " finality " which the great 
parties had combined to establish. 

Nor was the small vote for Hale a matter of seri- 
ous discouragement. It was much smaller than 
that cast for Van Buren in 1848; but that was a 
deceptive epoch. Multitudes, and especially in 
the State of New York, then voted the Free Soil 
ticket who had never before shown any interest in 
the slavery question, and did not manifest it after- 
ward. They were not Free Soil men, but Van 
Buren men, who hated Gen. Cass. The vote for 
Hale represented the bona fide strength of our 
cause after this element had been eliminated, and 
its quality went far to atone for its quantity. The 
proper test of anti-slavery progress was a compari- 
son of the anti-slavery vote of 1844 with that of 
1852, and this showed an increase of nearly three- 
fold in the intervening space of eight years. This 
steady evolution of anti-slavery opinion from the 
deadening materialism and moral inertia of the 
times could not go backward, but in the very 
nature of things would repeat itself, and gather 
fresh momentum from every effort put forth to 
stay its advance. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE EVOLUTION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY (CON- 
TINUED). 

A notable fugitive slave case — Inauguration of Pierce — Repeal 
of the Missouri compromise — Its effect upon the parties — 
The Free Soil position — Know-Nothingism — The situation 
. — First steps in the formation of the Republican party — 
Movements of the Know-Nothings — Mistake of the Free 
Soilers — Anti-slavery progress — Election of Banks as Speaker 
— Call for a Republican National Convention at Pittsburg — 
Organization of the party-\The Philadelphia convention and 
its platform — Nomination of Fremont— Know-Nothing and 
Whig nominations — Democratic nomination and platform — 
The grand issue of the campaign — The Democratic canvass 
— The splendid fight for Fremont — Triumph of Buchanan 
— Its causes and results — The teaching of events. 

It was early in the year 1853 that a notable fugi- 
tive slave case occurred in Indiana. The alleged 
fugitive was John Freeman, who had once resided 
in Georgia, but for many years had been a resident 
of Indianapolis and had never been a slave. The 
marshal of the State, though he had voted against 
the passage of the Fugitive Act of 1850, entered 
upon the service of Ellington, the claimant, with 
a zeal and alacrity which made him exceedingly 
odious to anti-slavery men. He accompanied 
(133) 



134 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

Ellington Into the jail in which Freeman was con- 
fined, and compelled him to expose his shoulders 
and legs, so that the witnesses could identify him 
by certain marks, and swear according to the pat- 
tern, which they did. The case became critical for 
Freeman; but the feeling in Indianapolis was so 
strong in his favor that a continuance of the hear- 
ing was granted to enable him to prepare his proofs. 
He hired friends to go to Georgia, who succeeded 
in bringing back with them several men who had 
known him there many years before, and testified 
that he was a free man. On the day of the trial 
Ellington became the fugitive, while Freeman was 
preparing his papers for a prosecution for false im- 
prisonment. The large crowd in attendance was 
quite naturally turned into an anti-slavery meeting, 
which was made to do good service in the way of 
'' agitation." The men from Georgia were on the 
platform, and while they were complimented by the 
speakers on their love of justice and humanity in 
coming to the rescue of Freeman, no quarter was 
given to the Northern serviles and flunkeys who had 
made haste to serve the perjured villains who had 
undertaken to kidnap a citizen of the State under 
the forms of an atrocious law. The meeting was 
very enthusiastic, and the tables completely turned 
on the slave- catching faction. 

When President Pierce was inaugurated, on the 
fourth of March, 1853, the pride and power of the 
Democratic party seemed to be at their flood. In 



THE REPUBLICAN FAR TY. 135 

his inaugural message he expressed the fervent 
hope that the slavery question was " forever at rest,'' 
and he doubtless fully believed that this hope would 
be realized. In his annual message, in December 
following, he lauded the Compromise measures 
with great emphasis, and declared that the repose 
which they had brought to the country should re- 
ceive no shock during his term of office if he could 
avert it. The anti-slavery element in the Thirty- 
third Congress was scarcely as formidable as in the 
preceding one, though there were some accessions. 
Benjamin F. Wade was now in the Senate, and De 
Witt of Massachusetts, Gerritt Smith of New York, 
and Edward Wade of Ohio, were members of the 
House. In the beginning the session gave promise 
of a quiet one, but on the twenty-third of January 
the precious repose of the country, to which the 
President had so lovingly referred in his message, 
was rudely shocked by the proposition of Sena- 
tor Douglas to repeal the Missouri compromise. 
This surprising demonstration from a leading friend 
of the Administration and a champion of the com- 
promise measures marked a new epoch in the 
career of slavery, and rekindled the fires of sec- 
tional strife. After a very exciting debate in both 
houses, which lasted four months, the measure 
finally became a law on the thirtieth of May, 1854. 
It was a sprout from the grave of the Wilmot 
proviso ; for if, under the Constitution, it was the 
duty of Congress to abandon the policy of restric- 



136 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

tion ill 1S50, and provide that Utah and New 
Mexico should be received into the Union, with or 
without slavery, according to the choice of their 
people, the Missouri compromise Jine should never 
have been established, and was a rock of offense 
to the slave-holders. The Compromise Acts of 
1850 had not abrogated that line, and related only 
to our Mexican acquisitions ; but they had affirmed 
a principle, and if that principle was sound, the 
Missouri restriction was indefensible. The whole 
question of slavery was thus reopened, for the sa- 
credness of the compact of 1820 and the wicked- 
ness of its violation depended largely upon the 
character of slavery itself, and our constitutional 
relations to it. 

On all sides the situation was exceedingly crit- 
ical and peculiar. The Whigs, in their now practi- 
cally disbanded condition, were free to act as they 
saw fit, and were very indignant at this new demon- 
stration in the interest of slavery, while they were 
yet in no mood to countenance any form of " abo- 
litionism." Multitudes of Democrats were equally 
indignant, and were quite ready to join hands with 
the Whigs in branding slavery with the violation 
of its plighted faith. Both made the sacredness of 
the bargain of 1820 and the crime of its violation 
the sole basis of their hostility. Their hatred of 
slavery was geographical, spending its force north 
of the Missouri restriction. They talked far more 
eloquently about the duty of keeping covenants, 



THE REP UBL ICA N PARTY. 1 3 7 

and the wickedness of reviving sectional agitation, 
than the evils of slavery, and the cold-blooded 
conspiracy to spread it over an empire of free soil. 
Their watch-word and rallying cry was " the res- 
toration of the Missouri compromise"; but this 
demand was not made merely as a preliminary to 
other measures, which would restore the free States 
to the complete assertion of their constitutional 
rights, but as a means of propitiating the spirit of 
compromise, and a convenient retreat to the adjust- 
ment acts of 1850 and the " finality " platforms of 
1852. In some States and localities the anti-slavery 
position of these parties was somewhat broader ; 
but as a general rule the ground on which they 
marshaled their forces was substantially what I 
have stated. 

The position of the Free Soilers was radically 
different. They opposed slavery upon principle, 
and irrespective of any compact or compromise. 
They did not demand the restoration of the Mis- 
souri compromise; and although they rejoiced at 
the popular condemnation of the perfidy which had 
repealed it, they regarded it as a false issue. It 
was an instrument on which different tunes could 
be played. To restore this compromise would pre- 
vent the spread of slavery over soil that was free ; 
but it would re-affirm the binding obligation of a 
compact that should never have been made, and 
from which we were now offered a favorable oppor- 
tunity of deliverance. It would be to recognize 



138 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

slavery as an equal and honorable contracting 
party, waiving its violated faith, and thus preclud- 
ing us from pleading its perfidy in discharge of all 
compromises. It would deg-rade our cause to the 
level of those who washed their hands of all taint 
of abolitionism, and only waged war against the 
Administration because it broke up the blessed 
reign of peace which descended upon the country 
in the year 1850. These Free Soilers insisted that 
the breach of this compact was only a single link 
in a great chain of measures aiming at the absolute 
supremacy of slavery in the Government, and thus 
inviting a resistance commensurate with that policy) 
and that this breach should be made the exodus of 
the people from the bondage of all compromises. 
They argued that to cut down the issue between 
slavery and freedom to so narrow, equivocal, and 
half-hearted a measure, at a time when every con- 
sideration pleaded for radical and thorough work, 
was practical infidelity to the cause and the crisis. 
It was sporting with humanity, and giving to the 
winds a glorious victory for the right when it was 
within our grasp. 

The situation was complicated by two other polit- 
ical elements. One of these was Temperance, which 
now, for the first time, had become a most absorb- 
ing political issue. The " Maine Law " agitation 
had reached the West, and the demand of the 
temperance leaders was ** search, seizure, con- 
fiscation, and destruction of liquors kept for illegal 



THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 1 39 

sale." Keenly alive to the evils of drunkenness, 
and too impatient to wait for the inevitable condi- 
tions of progress, they thought the great work 
could be accomplished by a legislative short-cut. 
They insisted that the '' accursed poison " of the 
"rumseller," wherever it could be found, should 
be poured into the gutter along with other filth, 
while he should be marched off to answer to the 
charge of a crime against society, and take his rank 
among other great offenders. Instead of directing 
their chief attack against the appetite for drink and 
seeking to lessen the demand, their effort was to 
destroy the supply. They had evidently given no 
thought to the function of civil government in 
dealing with the problem, nor did they perceive 
that the vice of drunkenness is an effect, quite as 
much as a cause, having its genesis in unequal laws, 
in the domination of wealth over the poor, in the 
lack of general education, in inherited infirmities, 
physical and mental, in neglected household train- 
ing; in a word, in untoward social conditions which 
must be radically dealt with before we can strike 
with effect at the root of the evil. They did not 
see that the temperance question is thus a many- 
sided one, involving the general uplifting of society, 
and that no legislation can avail much which loses 
sight of this truth. For these very reasons the 
agitation for a time swept everything before it. Its 
current was resistless, because it was narrow and 
impetuous. If the leaders had comprehended the 



140 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

logic of their work and its unavoidable limitations, 
and had only looked forward to the overthrow of 
the fabric of intemperance by undermining its 
foundations, the regular current of politics would 
not have been perceptibly affected, while the way 
would have been left open for a more perfect union 
on the really vital and overshadowing issue of 
slavery. 

The other element referred to made its appear- 
ance in the closing months of 1853, and took the 
name of the Know-Nothing party. It was a secret 
oath-bound political order, and its demand was the 
proscription of Catholics and a probation of twen- 
ty-one years for the foreigner as a qualification for 
the right of suffrage. Its career was as remarka- 
ble as it was disgraceful. Thousands were made 
to believe that the Romish hierarchy was about to 
overthrow our liberties, and that the evils of " for- 
eignism " had become so alarming as to justify the 
extraordinary measures by which it was proposed 
to counteract them. Thousands, misled by polit- 
ical knaves through the arts of the Jesuits believed 
that the cause of freedom was to be sanctified and 
saved by this new thing under the sun. Thousands, 
through their unbridled credulity, were persuaded 
that political hacks and charlatans were to lose 
their occupation under the reign of the new Order, 
and that our debauched politics were to be thor- 
oughly purified by the lustration which it promised 
forthwith to perform. Thousands, eager to bolt 



THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 1 4 1 

from the old parties, but fearful of being shot down 
on the way as deserters, gladly availed themselves 
of this newly devised "underground railroad" in 
escaping from the service of their old masters. 
Under these various influences the Whigs gener- 
ally, and a large proportion of the Free Soilers and 
Democrats, were enlisted in the service of this 
remarkable movement. Pretending to herald a 
new era in our politics in which the people were to 
take the helm and expel demagogues and trad- 
ers from the ship, it reduced political swindling 
to the certainty and system of a science. It drew 
to itself, as the great festering centre of corruption, 
all the known rascalities of the previous generation, 
and assigned them to active duty in its service. 
It was an embodied lie of the first magnitude, a 
horrid conspiracy against decency, the rights of 
man, and the principle of human brotherhood. 

Its birth, simultaneously with the repeal of the 
Missouri compromise, was not an accident, as any 
one could see who had studied the tactics of the 
slave-holders. It was a well-timed scheme to divide 
the people of the free States upon trifles and side 
issues, while the South remained a unit in defense 
of its great interest. It was the cunning attempt 
to balk and divert the indignation aroused by the 
repeal of the Missouri restriction, which else would 
spend its force upon the aggressions of slavery ; 
for by thus kindling the Protestant jealousy of our 
people against the Pope, and enlisting them in a 



142 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

crusade against the foreigner, the South could all 
the more successfully push forward its schemes. 

On this ground, as an anti-slavery man, I opposed 
it with all my might from the beginning to the end 
of its life. For a time it carried everything with a 
high hand. It was not only irresistible in numbers, 
but it fought in the dark. It pretended to act openly 
and in friendly conference with its enemies as to 
questions which it had already settled in secret 
conclave. Its opponents did not know how to 
wage war against it, because they did not know who 
were their friends. If a meeting was called to ex- 
pose and denounce its schemes, it was drowned in 
the Know-Nothing flood which, at the appointed 
time, completely overwhelmed the helpless minor- 
ity. This happened in my own county and town, 
where thousands of men, including many of my old 
Free Soil brethren, assembled as an organized mob 
to suppress the freedom of speech ; and they suc- 
ceeded by brute force in taking possession of every 
building in which their opponents could meet, and 
silencing them by savage yells. At one time I 
think I had less than a dozen political friends in 
the State, and I could see in the glad smile which 
lighted up the faces of my old time enemies that 
they considered me beyond the reach of political 
resurrection. But I never for a moment intermitted 
my warfare, or doubted that in the end the truth 
would be vindicated, although I did not dream that 
in less than two years I would be the recognized 



THE REP UBL ICAN PARTY. 143 

• — • 

leader of the men composing this mob, who would 
be found denying their membership of this secret 
order, or confessing it with shame. It was a 
strange dispensation ; and no record of independ- 
ent journalism was ever more honorable than that 
of the " New York Tribune " and " National Era," 
during their heroic and self-sacrificing fight against 
this organized scheme of bigotry and proscription, 
which can only be remembered as the crowning 
and indelible shame of our politics. It admits of 
neither defense nor palliation, and I am sorry to 
find Henry Wilson's " History of the Rise and Fall 
of the Slave Power " disfigured by his elaborate 
efforts to whitewash it into respectability, and give 
it a decent place in the records of the past. 

Such were the elements which mingled and com- 
mingled in the political ferment of 1854, and out 
of which an anti-slavery party was to be evolved 
capable of trying conclusions with the perfectly 
disciplined power of slavery. The problem was 
exceedingly difficult, and could not be solved in a 
day. The necessary conditions of progress could 
not be slighted, and the element of time must neces- 
sarily be a large one in the grand movement which 
was to come. The dispersion of the old parties 
was one thing, but the organization of their frag- 
ments into a new one on a just basis was quite a 
different thing. The honor of taking the first step 
in the formation of the Republican party belongs to 
Michigan, where the Whigs and Free Soilers met 



144 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS, 

in State convention on the sixth of July, formed a 
complete fusion into one party, and adopted the 
name Republican. This action was followed soon 
after by like movements in the States of Wisconsin 
and Vermont. In Indiana a State *' fusion" con- 
vention was held on the thirteenth of July, which 
adopted a platform, nominated a ticket, and called 
the new movement the " People's Party." The 
platform, however, was narrow and equivocal, and 
the ticket nominated had been agreed on the day 
before by the Know-Nothings, in secret conclave, 
as the outside world afterward learned. The ticket 
was elected, but it was done by combining opposite 
and irreconcilable elements, and was not only 
barren of good fruits but prolific of bad ones, 
through its demoralizing example ; for the same 
dishonest game was attempted the year following, 
and was overwhelniingly defeated by the Demo- 
crats. In New York the Whigs refused to disband, 
and the attempt to form a new party failed. The 
same was true of Massachusetts and Ohio. The 
latter State, however, in 1855, fell into the Repub- 
lican column, and nominated Mr. Chase for Gov- 
ernor, who was elected by a large majority. A 
Republican movement was attempted this year in 
Massachusetts, where conservative Whiggery and 
Know-Nothingism blocked the way of progress, as 
they did also in the State of New York. In No- 
vember of the year 1854 the Know-Nothing party 
held a National Convention in Cincinnati, in which 



THE REPUBLICAN FAR TV. 1 4 5 

the hand of slavery was clearly revealed, and the 
" Third Degree," or pro-slavery obligation of the 
order, was adopted ; and it was estimated that at 
least a million and a half of men afterward bound 
themselves by this obligation. In June of the fol- 
lowing year another National Convention of the 
order was held in Philadelphia, and at this conven- 
tion the party was finally disrupted on the issue of 
slavery, and its errand of mischief henceforward 
prosecuted by fragmentary and irregular methods; 
but even the Northern wing of this Order was un- 
trustworthy on the slavery issue, having proposed, 
as a condition of union, to limit its anti-slavery 
demand to the restoration of the Missouri restric- 
tion and the admission of Kansas and Nebraska as 
free States. 

Indeed, the outlook as to the formation of a 
triumphant anti-slavery party was not so promising 
towards the close of the year 1855 as it had seemed 
in the spring of the preceding year. If the Free 
Soilers had been clear-sighted enough to diatin- 
guish between that which was transient and that 
which was permanent in the forces which had 
roused the people of the free States, and, availing 
themselves of the repeal of the Missouri restriction 
as a God-send to their cause, had summoned the 
manhood of the country to their help, a powerful 
impulse would have been given in the right direc- 
tion. But in the general confusion and bewilder- 
ment of the times many of them lost their way, and 
10 



146 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

were found mustering with the mongrel hordes of 
Know-Nothingism, and under captains who were 
utterly unworthy to lead them. Instead of inflex- 
ibly maintaining their ground and beckoning the 
people to come up and possess it, they meanly de- 
serted it themselves, while vainly expecting others 
to occupy it. The Whigs were totally powerless 
to render any service without first disbanding their 
party, and this, in many localities, they declined to 
do. Both wings of the Know-Nothmg movement 
were organized obstacles to the formation of a new 
party, while the bolters from the Democrats were 
as unprepared for radical anti-slavery work as the 
Whigs or Know-Nothings. But notwithstanding 
all these drawbacks, real progress had been made. 
In the Thirty-fourth Congress, Wilson, Foster, 
Harlan, Trumbull, and Durkee were chosen sena- 
tors. In the House were Burlingame, Buffington, 
Banks, Hickman, Grow, Covode, Sherman, Bliss, 
Galloway. Bingham, Harlan, Stanton, Colfax, 
Washburn, and many others. These were great 
gains, and clearly pointed to still larger accessions, 
and the final subordination of minor issues to the 
grand one on which the people of the free States 
were to take their stand. An unprecedented strug- 
gle for the Speakership began with the opening of 
the Thirty-fourth Congress, and lasted till the sec- 
ond day of February, when the free States finally 
achieved their first victory in the election of Banks. 
Northern manhood at last was at a premium, and 



THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 147 

this was largely the fruit of the " border ruffian " 
attempts to make Kansas a slave State, which had 
stirred the blood of the people during the year 1855. 
In the meantime, the arbitrary enforcement of the 
Fugitive Slave Act still further contributed to the 
growth of an anti-slavery opinion. The famous 
case of Anthony Burns in Boston, the prosecution 
of S. M. Booth in Wisconsin, and the decision of 
the Supreme Court of that State, the imprisonment 
of Passmore Williamson in Philadelphia, and the 
outrageous rulings of Judge Kane, and the case of 
Margaret Garner in Ohio, all played their part in 
preparing the people of the free States for organ- 
ized political action against the aggressions of 
slavery. 

Near the close of the year 1855, the chairmen 
of the Republican State Committees of Ohio, Mas- 
sachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin, 
issued a call for a National Republican Conven- 
tion to be held at Pittsburg, on the 22d of Febru- 
ary, 1856, for the purpose of organizing a National 
Republican party, and making provision for a sub- 
sequent convention to nominate candidates for 
President and Vice President. It was very largely 
attended, and bore witness to the spirit and courage 
which the desperate measures of the slave oli- 
garchy had awakened throughout the Northern 
States. All the free States were represented, and 
eight of the slave-holding, namely: Maryland^ 
Virginia, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, 



148 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

North Carolina, and Texas. The convention as- 
sembled in Lafayette Hall, and the Hon John A. 
Kmg, of New York, a son of Rufus King, was 
made temporary chairman, and Francis P. Blair, 
of Maryland, the intimate friend of President 
Jackson, was made its permanent president. He 
was most enthusiastically greeted on taking the 
chair, and began his address with the remark that 
this was the first time he had ever been called on 
to make a speech. His views were too conserva- 
tive in tone to satisfy the demands of the crisis, 
but he was most cordially welcomed as a distin- 
guished delegate from a slave State. The conven- 
tion was opened by a prayer from Owen Lovejoy, 
and there was a suppressed murmur of applause 
when he asked God to enlighten the mind of the 
President of the United States, and turn him from 
his evil ways, and if this was not possible, to take 
him away, so that an honest and God-fearing man 
might fill his place. Horace Greeley was seen in 
the audience, and was loudly and unitedly called 
on for a speech. He spoke briefly, saying that he 
had been in Washington several weeks, and friends 
there " counseled extreme caution in our move- 
ments." This was the burden of his exhortation. 
At the close of his remarks Mr. Giddings was 
tumultuously called for, and responded by saying 
that Washington was the last place in the world to 
look for counsel or redress, and related an anecdote 
of two pious brothers named Joseph and John, 



THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 149 

who in early times had begun a settlement in the 
West. Joseph prayed to the Lord : " O, Lord ! 
we have begun a good work ; we pray thee to 
carry it on thus," — giving specific directions. But 
John prayed : " O, Lord, we have begun a good 
work ; carry it on as you think best, and don't mind 
what Joe says." Mr. Giddings then introduced 
the Rev. Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois, — '' not Joe, 
but John." Mr. Lovejoy delighted the audience, 
and was followed by Preston King and other 
speakers ; and it was quite manifest that this was 
a Republican convention, and not a mere aggre- 
gation of Whigs, Know-Nothings, and dissatisfied 
Democrats. It contained a considerable Know- 
Nothing element, but it made no attempt at leader- 
ship, while Charles Remelin and other speakers 
were enthusiastically applauded when they de- 
nounced Know-Nothingism as a mischievous side 
issue in our politics, which the new movement 
should openly repudiate. The convention was in 
session two days, and was singularly harmonious 
throughout. Its resolutions and address to the 
people did not fitly echo the feeling and purpose of 
its members, but this was a preliminary move- 
,ment. and it was evident that nothing could stay 
the progress of the cause. As chairman of the 
committee on organization, I had the honor to re- 
port the plan of action through which the new 
party took life, providing for the appointment of a 
National Executive Committee, the holding of a 



150 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



National Convention in Philadelphia on the 17th 
of June, for the nomination of candidates for Presi- 
dent and Vice President, and the organization of 
the party in counties and districts throughout the 
States. 

The Philadelphia convention was very large, and 
marked by unbounded enthusiasm. The spirit of 
liberty was up, and side issues forgotten. If Know- 
Nothingism was present, it prudently accepted an 
attitude of subordination. The platform reasserted 
the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and denied that Congress, the people of 
a Territory, or any other authority, could give 
legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the 
United States. It asserted the sovereign power 
of Congress over the Territories, and its right and 
duty to prohibit it therein. Know-Nothingism re- 
ceived no recognition, and the double-faced issue 
of the restoration of the Missouri compromise was 
disowned, while the freedom of Kansas was dealt 
with as a mere incident of the conflict between 
liberty and slavery. On this broad platform John 
C. Fremont was nominated for President on the 
first ballot, and Wm. L. Dayton was unanimously 
nominated for Vice President. The National Re- 
publican party was thus splendidly launched, and 
nothing seemed to stand in the way of its triumph 
but the mischievous action of the Know-Nothing 
party, and a surviving faction of pro-slavery Whigs. 
The former party met in National Convention in 



THE REPUBLICAN PAR TY. 1 5 I 



Philadelphia, on the twenty-second of February, 
and nominated Millard Fillmore for President and 
Andrew J. Donelson for Vice President. Some 
bolters from this convention subsequently nomi- 
nated Nathaniel P. Banks and William F. Johnson 
as their candidates, and a remnant of the Whig 
party held a convention in Baltimore on the seven- 
teenth of September, and endorsed Fillmore and 
Donelson ; but a dissatisfied portion of the conven- 
tion afterward nominated Commodore Stockton 
and Kenneth Raynor. All these factions were des- 
tined soon to political extinction, but in a hand-to- 
hand fight with the slave power they yet formed a 
considerable obstacle to that union and harmony 
in the free States which were necessary to suc- 
cess. 

The Democratic National Convention met at 
Cincinnati on the second of June. The candidates 
were Buchanan, Pierce, and Douglas. On the 
seventeenth ballot Buchanan was unanimously 
nominated for President, and on the second ballot 
John C. Breckenridge was nominated for Vice 
President. The platform re affirmed the action 
of Congress respecting the repeal of the Mis- 
souri compromise and the compromises of 1850, 
and recognized the right of the people of all the 
Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, when- 
ever the number of their inhabitants justified it, to 
form a Constitution with or without domestic slav- 
ery, and to be admitted into the Union upon terms 



152 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

of equality with the other States. These declara- 
tions, coupled with the express denial to Congress 
of the right to interfere with slavery in the Territo- 
ries, were accepted as satisfactory to the South, and 
were fairly interpreted to mean that the people of 
the Territories, pending their territorial condition, 
had no power to exclude slavery therefrom. In 
Mr. Buchanan's letter of acceptance he completely 
buried his personality in the platform, and Albert 
G. Browm of Mississippi, and Governor Wise of Vir- 
ginia, pronounced him as true to the South as Mr. 
Calhoun himself. These were the tickets for 1856, 
but the real contest was between Buchanan and 
Fremont. It was pre-eminently a conflict of prin- 
ciples. The issues could hardly have been better 
defined, and they were vital. It was a struggle 
between two civilizations, between reason and 
brute force, betw^een the principles of Democracy 
and the creed of Absolutism ; and the case was 
argued with a force, earnestness, and fervor, never 
before known. No Presidential contest had ever 
so touched the popular heart, or so lifted up and 
ennobled the people by the contagion of a great 
and pervading moral enthusiasm. The campaign 
for Buchanan, however, w^as not particularly ani- 
mated, at least in the Northern States. It illus- 
trated the power of party machinery, and the des- 
perate purpose to press forward along a path which 
had been followed too far to call a halt. It was a 
struggle for party ascendancy by continual and 



THE REPUBLICAN PAR TV. 153 

most humiliating concessions to the ever-multiply- 
ing demands of slavery ; and the ardor of the strug- 
gle must have been cooled by many troublesome 
misgivings as to the final effect of these conces- 
sions, and the policy of purchasing a victory at 
such a price. 

The excitement of the canvass was aggravated by 
very exasperating circumstances. The brutal and 
cowardly assault of Brooks upon Sumner was the 
counterpart of border ruffianism in Kansas, and 
perhaps did more to stir the blood of the people of 
the Northern States than any of the wholesale out- 
rages thus far perpetrated in that distant border. 
These outrages, however, were now multiplied in 
all directions, and took on new shapes. They were 
legislative, executive, and judicial, cropping out 
in private pillage and assassination, in organized 
marauding and murder, and in armed violence ; 
and these horrid demonstrations enlivened the can- 
vass to the end. Republican enthusiasm reached 
its white heat, borrowing the self- forgetting devo- 
tion and dedicated zeal of a religious conversion. 
Banks and tariffs and methods of administration 
were completely forgotten, while thousands of 
Democrats who had been trained in the school of 
slavery, and hundreds of thousands of conservative 
Whigs, caught the spirit of liberty which animated 
the followers of Fremont and Dayton. The can- 
vass had no parallel in the history of American 
politics. No such mass-meetings had ever assem- 



154 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

bled. They were not only immense in numbers, 
but seemed to come together spontaneously, and 
wholly independent of machinery. The proces- 
sions, banners, and devices were admirable in all 
their appointments, and no political campaign had 
ever been inspired by such charming and soul-stir- 
ring music, or cheered by such a following of 
orderly, intelligent, conscientious and thoroughly 
devoted men and women. To me the memory of 
this first great national struggle for liberty is a 
delight, as the part I played in it was a real jubi- 
lee of the heart. I was welcomed by the Repub- 
lican masses everywhere, and the fact was as grati- 
fying to me as it proved mortifying to the party 
chiefs who, a little while before, had found such 
comfort in the assurance that henceforward they 
were rid of me. With many wry faces they sub- 
mitted, after all sorts of manoeuvers early in the 
canvass to keep me in the background, varied by 
occasional threats to drive me out of the party. 
As their own party standing became somewhat 
precarious they completely changed their base, and 
often amused the public by super-serviceable dis- 
plays of their personal friendship. Even the ring- 
leader of the Know-Nothing mob of two years 
before, standing up to his full height of ''six feet 
six," used to introduce me at mass-meetings as 
" Your honored representative in Congress, and 
war-worn veteran in the cause of liberty." 

But Buchanan triumphed. The baleful inter- 



THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 155 

position of Know-Nothingism stood in the way of 
that union of forces which the situation demanded, 
,y^ and was thus chiefly responsible for the Repubh'can 
^ defeat. The old Whigs who had so recently 
stepped from their " finality " platform, could not 
be unitedly rallied, and the Democratic bolters 
were only half converted. In my own State the 
opposition to the Democracy repudiated even the 
name Republican, and entered the field as " the Peo- 
ple's party." It was a combination of weaknesses, 
instead of a union of forces. All the Fillmore 
Know-Nothings and Silver- Grey Whigs of the 
State were recognized as brethren. At least one 
man on the State ticket, of which Oliver P. Morton 
was the head, was a Fillmore man, while both Fill- 
more and anti-Fillmore men had been chosen as 
delegates to Philadelphia and electors for the State. 
The political managers even went so far as to sup- 
. press their own electoral ticket during the canvass, 
as a peace-offering to old Whiggery and Know- 
Nothingism, while the admission of Kansas as a 
free State was dealt with as the sole issue, and 
border ruffian outrages and elaborate disclaimers 
of ** abolitionism " were the regular staple of our 
orators, who openly declared that the Republican 
party was a " white man's party." Anti-slavery 
speakers like Clay and Burlingame Vv'ere studiously 
kept out of Southern Indiana, where the teach- 
ings ofRepublicanism were especially needed, and 
Richard W.Thompson, then the professed champion 



156 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

of Fillmore, but in reality the stipendiary of the 
Democrats, traversed that region on the stump, de- 
nounced the Republicans as " Abolitionists," " dis- 
unionists," and " incendiaries," and was everywhere 
unchallenged in his course/\ Similar tactics, though 
not so deplorably despicaEle, prevailed in several 
of the other States, giving unmistakable evidence 
of the need of a still further and more thorough 
enlightenment of the people as to the spirit and 
aims of slavery. In the light of these facts, I was 
not at all cast down by the defeat of Fremont. He 
was known as an explorer, and not as a statesman. 
If he had succeeded, with mere politicians in his 
cabinet, a Congress against him, and only a par- 
tially developed anti-slavery sentiment behind him, 
the cause of freedom would have been in fearful 
peril. The revolution so hopefully begun might 
have been arrested by halfway measures, promot- 
ing the slumber rather than the agitation of the 
truth, while the irritating nostrums of Buchanan 
Democracy, so necessary to display the abomina- 
tions of slavery, would have been lost to us. The 
moral power of the canvass for Fremont was itself 
a great gain, notwithstanding the cowardice of some 
of its leaders. The Republican movement could 
not now go backward, and with a probation of four 
years to prepare for the next conflict, unembarrassed 
by the responsibilities of power, and free to profit 
by the blunders and misdeeds of its foe, it was 
pretty sure of a triumph in i860. Fremont had 



THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 157 

received a popular vote of one million three hun- 
dred and forty-one thousand two hundred and 
sixty-four, carrying eleven States and ore hundred 
and fourteen electoral votes; while only four years 
before, John P. Hale, standing- on substantially 
the same platform, had received only a little more 
than one hundred and fifty-seven thousand, and 
not a single electoral vote. This showed a mar- 
velous anti-slavery progress, considering the age 
of the movement, the elements it forced into com- 
bination, and the difficulties under which it strug- 
gled into life ; and no one could misinteroret its 
significance. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. 

The Dred Scott decision — The struggle for freedom in Kansas — 
Instructive debates in Congress — Republican gains in the 
Thirty- fifth Congress — The English bill — Its defeat and the 
effect — Defection of Douglas — Its advantages and its perils 
-strange course of the New York Tribune and other Repub- 
lican papers — Republican retreat in Indiana — Illinois Re- 
publicans stand firm, and hold the party to its position — 
Gains in the Thirty-sixth Congress-VSouthern barbarism and 
extravagance-\^ohn Brown's /raid — Cuba and the slave 
trade — Oregon and Kansas-4.^ids to anti-slavery progress — 
The Speakership and Helper's book — Southern insolence and 
extravagance — Degradation of Douglas — Slave code for the 
Territories-^Outrages in the South — Campaign of i860 — 
Charleston convention and division of the Democrats — 
Madness of the factions — Bell and Everett— Vkepublican 
National Convention and its platform — Lincoln and Seward 
— Canvass of Douglas — The campaign for Lincoln — Con- 
duct of Seward-y-^kepublican concessions and slave-holding 
madness. 

The Republicans, however, were sorely disap- 
pointed by their defeat ; but this second great vic- 
tory of slaver}^ did not at all check the progress of 
the anti-slavery cause. It had constantly gathered 
strength from the audacity and recklessness of 
slave-holding fanaticism, and it continued to do so. 
On the 6th of March, 1857, the Supreme Court of 

(158) 



PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. 159 

the United States harnessed itself to the car of 
slavery by its memorable decision in the case of 
Dred Scott, affirming that Congress had no power 
to prohibit slavery in the Territories, and, inferen- 
tially, that the Constitution carried with it the right 
to hold slaves there, even against the will of their 
people. The point was not before the court, and 
the opinion of Chief Justice Taney was therefore 
purel}^ extra-judicial. It was simply a political 
harangue in defense of slavery. It created a pro- 
found impression throughout the free States, and 
became a powerful weapon in the hands of Repub- 
licans. It was against the whole current of ad- 
judications on the subject, and they denounced it 
as a vile caricature of American jurisprudence. 
They characterized it as the distilled diabolism of 
two hundred years of slavery, stealthily aiming 
at the overthrow of our Republican institutions, 
while seeking to hide its nakedness under the fig- 
leaves of judicial fairness and dignity. They brand- 
ed it as the desperate attempt of slave-breeding 
Democracy to crown itself king, by debauching the 
Federal judiciary and waging war against the ad- 
vance of civilization. Their denunciations of the 
Chief Justice were unsparing and remorseless ; and 
they described him as " pouring out the hoarded 
villainies of a life-time into a political opinion 
which he tried to coin into law.' When Senator 
Douglas sought to ridicule their clamor by in- 
quiring whether they would take an appeal from 



l6o POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the Supreme Court of the United States to a town 
meeting, they answered : " Yes, we appeal from 
the court to the people, who made the Constitution, 
and have the right, as the tribunal of last resort, to 
define its meaning." Nothing could more clearly 
have marked the degradation to which the power 
of slavery had reduced the country than this de- 
cision, and no other single event could have so 
prepared the people for resistance to its aggres- 
sions. It was thoroughly cold-blooded in its letter 
and spirit, and no Spanish Inquisitor ever showed 
less sympathy for his victim than did the Chief 
Justice for the slave. 

But the Died Scott iniquity did not stand alone. 
It had been procured for the purpose of fastening 
slavery upon all the Territories, and it had, of 
course, a special meaning when applied to the 
desperate struggle then in progress to make 
Kansas a slave State. The conduct of the Ad- 
ministration during this year, in its treatment of 
the free State men of that Territory, forms one of 
the blackest pages in the history of slavery. The 
facts respecting their labors, trials, and sufferings, 
and the methods employed to force upon them, the 
Lecompton Constitution, including wholesale bal- 
lot-stuf^ng and every form of ruffianism, pillage, 
and murder, need not be recited ; but all these were 
but the outcroppings and counterpart of the Dred 
Scott decision, and the horrid travesty of the prin- 
ciple of popular sovereignty in the Territories. 



FIWGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. i6l 

The whole power of the Administration, acting as 
the hired man of slavery, was ruthlessly employed 
for the purpose of spreading- the curse over Kan- 
sas, and establishing it there as an irreversible 
fact; and all the departments of the Government 
now stood as a unit on the side of this devilish 
conspiracy. Everybody knew that the Lecompton 
Constitution was the work of outside ruffians, and 
not of the people of the Territory, whose Legislature 
in February, 1858, solemnly protested against their 
admission under that Constitution, and whose pro- 
test was totally unheeded. The Congressional de- 
bates during this period greatly contributed to the 
anti-slavery education of the people, by more 
clearly unmasking the real spirit and designs of 
the slaveholders. We were treated to the kind 
of talk then becoming current about " Northern 
mud-sills," " filthy operatives," the " ownership of 
labor by capital," and the beauties and beatitudes 
of slavery. Such maddened extremists as Ham- 
mond and Keitt of South Carolina, and such 
blatant doughfaces as Petit of Indiana, became 
capital missionaries in the cause of freedom. Their 
words were caught up by the press of the free 
States, and added their beneficent help to the work 
so splendidly going forward through the providen- 
tial agency of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." 

In the meantime, freedom had made large gains 
in the composition of the Thirty-fifth Congress, 
which now had charge of the Lecompton swin- 
11 



1 62 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

die. The Senate contained twenty Republican 
members and the House ninety-two. Kansas had 
not been forced into the Union as a slave State, 
but she was helpless at the feet of the Executive. 
In the midst of the angry debate a new proposition 
was brought forward, on the twenty-third of April, 
which was even more detestable than the Lecomp- 
ton bill itself This was known as the " English 
bill," which offered Kansas a very large and tempt- 
ing land grant, if she would come into the Union 
under the Lecompton Constitution, but provided 
that if she voted to reject the land grant she should 
neither receive the land nor be admitted as a State 
until the Territory acquired a population sufficient 
to elect a representative to the House. The in- 
famy of this proposition was heightened by the fact 
that these long-suffering pioneers, weary and har- 
assed by their protracted struggle and longing for 
peace, were naturally tempted to purchase it at any 
price. It was a proposition of gigantic bribery, 
after bluster and bullying had been exhausted. It 
was, in fact, both a bribe and a menace, and meas- 
ured at once the political morality of the men who 
favored it, and the extremity to which the slave- 
holders were driven in the prosecution of their 
desperate enterprise. After a protracted debate in 
both Houses, and at the end of a struggle of five 
months, the bill was passed and received the Ex- 
ecutive approval ; but the rejoicing of the slave- 
holders and their allies was short-lived. The peo- 



PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. 163 

pie of Kansas were not in the market. They had 
suffered too much and too long in the battle for 
freedom to make merchandise of their convictions 
and sacrifice the future of a great commonwealth. 
They spurned the bribe, and took the chances of 
triumph through an indefinitely prolonged conflict, 
while recruits to the ranks of freedom were natu- 
rally falling into line throughout the Northern 
States. 

In December of this year I attended another 
fugitive slave case at Indianapolis. The claimant 
was one Vallandingham, of Kentucky, whose agent 
caught the alleged fugitive in Illinois, and was 
passing through Indianapolis on his way home. 
The counsel for the negro, Elsworth, Coburn, 
CoUey, and myself, brought the case before Judge 
Wallace, on. habeas corpus, and had him discharged. 
The claimant immediately had him arrested and 
taken before Commissioner Rea, for trial. We 
asked for the continuance of the case on the affi- 
davit of the negro that he was free, and could prove 
it if allowed three weeks' time in which to procure 
his witnesses; but the Commissioner ruled that the 
proceeding was a summary ex-partc one, and that 
the defendant had no right to any testimony. Of 
course we were forced into trial, and after allowing 
secondary proof where the highest was attainable, 
and permitting hearsay evidence and mere rumor, 
the Commissioner granted his certificate for the re- 
moval of the adjudged fugitive. We again brought 



164 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the case before Judge Wallace, on habeas corpus^ 
when the negro denied all the material facts of the 
marshal's return, under oath, and asked to be al- 
lowed to prove his denial ; but the Judge refused 
this, and he was handed over to the marshal for 
transportation South. On the trial he was shown 
to have been free by the act of his master in send- 
ing him into a free State ; but under cover of an 
infamous law, and by the help of truculent officials, 
he was remanded into slavery. The counsel for 
the negro, with a dozen or more who joined them, 
resolved upon one further effort to save him. The 
project was that two or three men selected for the 
purpose were to ask of the jailer the privilege of 
seeing him the next morning and giving him good- 
bye ; and while one of the party engaged the jailer 
in conversation, the negro was to make for the 
door, mount a horse hitched near by, and effect 
his escape. The enterprise had a favorable begin- 
ning. The negro got out, mounted a horse, and 
might have escaped if he had been a good horse- 
man ; but he was awkward and clumsy, and unfor- 
tunately mounted the wrong horse, and a very poor 
traveler ; and when he saw the jailer in pursuit, 
and heard the report of his revolver, he surrendered, 
and was at once escorted South. Walpole and his 
brother were for the claimant. This is the only 
felony in which I was ever involved, but none of 
the parties to it had any disposition whatever to 
confess it at the time. 



. PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. 165 

The Republican party gathered fresh courage 
and strength in the year 1858 from the defection of 
Douglas. His unmistakable ability and hitherto 
unquestioned devotion to slavery had singled him 
out as the great leader and coming man of his 
party. He was ambitious, and by no means scru- 
pulous in his political methods. The moral char- 
acter of slavery gave him not the slightest concern, 
ostentatiously declaring that he did not care whether 
it was " voted up or voted down" in the Territories, 
and always lavishing his contempt upon the negro. 
He was the great champion of popular sovereignty, 
but at the same time fully committed himself to 
the decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, whatever it might be ; and after that decis- 
ion had been given, and, in effect, against his par- 
ticular hobby, he defended it, while vainly striving 
to vindicate his consistency. But the Lecompton 
swindle was so revolting a mockery of the right 
of the people of Kansas, that his own Democratic 
constituents would not endorse it, and he was 
obliged, contrary to his strong party inclinations, to 
take his stand against it. It was an event of very 
great significance, both North and South, and 
gave great comfort to anti-slavery men of all shades 
of opinion ; but it brought with it, at the same 
time, a serious peril to the Republican party. 

His accession to the Anti- Lecompton ranks was 
deemed so important that many leading Repub- 
licans, of different States, thought he should 



1 66 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

be welcomed and honored by the withdrawal 
of all party opposition to his re-election to the 
Senate. They argued that in no other way could 
the despotic power of the Democratic party be so 
effectually broken, and the real interests of re- 
publicanism advanced. This feeling, for a time, 
prevailed extensively, and threatened to put in 
abeyance or com.pletely supersede the principles 
so broadly laid down in the national platform of 
1856. The " New York Tribune " took the lead in 
beating this retreat. It sympathised with Douglas 
to the end of his canvass, and in connection with 
kindred agencies probably saved h'im from defeat. 
It urged the disbanding of the Republican party, 
and the formation of a new combination against 
the Democrats, composed of Republicans, Doug- 
las Democrats, Know-Nothings, and old Whigs, 
but without the avowal of any principles. It pro- 
posed that by the common consent of these parties 
the Republicans should be allowed to name the 
next candidate for the Presidency, and the other 
parties the candidate for the Vice Presidency ; or 
that this proposition should be reversed, if found 
advisable, with a view to harmony. The different 
wings of this combination were to call themselves 
by such names and proclaim such principles in 
different States and localities as might seem to 
them most conducive to local success and united 
ascendancy. This abandonment of republicanism 
was likewise favored by such papers as the *' Cin- 



PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. 16/ 

ci'nnati Gazette," which pronounced the policy of 
Congressional prohibition worthless as a means of 
excluding slavery from the Territories, and openly 
committed itself to the admission of more slave 
States, whenever demanded by a popular majority 
in any Territory. *' The Indianapolis Journal " and 
other leading Republican organs spoke of Con- 
gressional prohibition as " murdered by Dred 
Scott," and as having no longer any practical value. 
In the spring of this year the Republicans of In- 
diana, in their State convention, not only surren- 
dered the policy of Congressional prohibition, and 
adopted the principle of popular sovereignty, but 
made opposition to the Lecompton Constitution 
the sole issue of the canvass. Under such leaders 
as Oliver P. Morton and his Whig and Know- 
Nothing associates, Republicanism simply meant 
opposition to the latest outrage of slavery, and 
acquiescence in all preceding ones ; but this 
shameful surrender of the cause to its enemies was 
deservedly condemned in the election which fol- 
lowed. The Legislature of the State, however, 
at its ensuing session, overwhelmingly endorsed 
the Douglas dogma, and even the better class of 
Republican papers urged the abandonment of the 
Republican creed. But, very fortunately for the 
cause, the Republicans of Illinois could not be 
persuaded to take Mr. Douglas into their embrace 
on the score of a single worthy act, and forget, if 
not forgive, his long career of effective and un- 



l68 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



tiring hostility to the principles they cherished ; 
and his nomination by the Democrats, on a plat- 
form very offensive to Republicans, fully justified 
their course. The result was the nomination of 
Mr. Lincoln as a candidate for the succession to 
Mr, Douglas, and the great joint debate which 
did so much to educate the mind of the free States 
and prepare the way for Mr. Lincoln's nomination 
the following year, while revealing the moral un- 
worthiness of his great rival, and justifying the 
policy which made necessary this memorable con- 
test in Illinois. 

The steady march of the Republican party 
toward ascendancy was shown in the Thirty-sixth 
Congress, which met in December, 1859. There 
were now twenty-four Republican senators, and 
one hundred and nine representatives. Early in 
the first session of this Congress an interesting de- 
bate occurred in the Senate on a proposition to 
provide for the education of the colored children 
of the District of Columbia. Mr. Mason con- 
demned the proposition, and said it was wise to 
prohibit the education of the colored race. Jefferson 
Davis declared that the Government was not made 
for them, and that " we have no right to tax our 
people to educate the barbarians of Africa." These 
and kindred utterances were well calculated to aid 
the work of anti-slavery progress. John Brown's 
raid into Virginia kindled the ire of the slave- 
holders to a degree as yet unprecedented, and 



PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. 169 



although his act found few defenders in the North- 
ern States, the heroism with which he met his 
fate, the pithy correspondence between Gov. Wise 
and Mrs. Child, the language of Southern senators 
in dealing Avith the subject, and the efforts made 
to ferret out Brown's associates, all tended to 
strengthen the growing hostility to slavery and 
prepare the way for the final conflict. The designs 
of the slaveholders upon Cuba, which were avowed 
in this Congress, and their purpose to acquire it for 
the extension of slavery, by purchase if they could, 
but if not by war, served the same purpose. The 
growing demand for the revival of the A.frican 
slave trade, as shown b}' the avowals of leading 
men in both houses of Congress, and their cold- 
blooded utterances on the subject, produced a pro- 
found impression on the countr\% and called forth 
the startling fact that the city of New York was 
then one of the greatest slave-trading marts in the 
world, and that from thirty to sixty thousand 
persons a year were taken from Africa to Cuba by 
vessels from that single port. Such facts as these, 
and that the laws of the Union for the suppression 
of the traffic were not only a dead letter but that 
the slave masters and their allies sullenly refused 
to take any steps whatever for the remedy of this 
organized inhumanity, were capital arguments for 
the Republicans, which they employed with telling 
effect. The refusal to admit Oregon as a State 
without a constitutional provision excluding people 



170 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

of color, the rejection of Kansas on her application 
with a Constitution fairly adopted by her people, and 
the great speech of Sumner on " The Barbarism of 
Slavery," which this last application called forth, 
all served their purpose in the growth of anti- 
slavery opinion. So did the attempt to divide Cal- 
ifornia for the purpose of introducing slavery into 
the southern portion ; the veto of an Act of the 
Territorial Legislature of Kansas abolishing slav- 
ery, and of a similar act in Nebraska ; the acts of 
several Southern States permitting free colored 
persons to sell themselves as slaves if they chose 
to do so in preference to expulsion from the land 
of their birth and their homes; the decision of the 
courts of Virginia that slaves had no social or civil 
rights, and no legal capacity to choose between 
being emancipated or sold as slaves ; the refusal of 
the Government to give a passport to a colored 
physician of Massachusetts, for the reason that such 
privileges were never conferred upon persons of 
color ; and the revolutionary sentiments uttered by 
governors and legislatures of various Southern 
States, some of which declared that the election of 
a Republican President would be sufficient cause for 
withdrawal from the Union. That these were im- 
portant aids to the progress of freedom was shown 
by the passage of laws in various Northern States 
for the protection of personal liberty, forbidding the 
use of local jails for the detention of persons claime. 
as fugitive slaves, and securing for them the righ. 



PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. 



of trial by jury and the benefit of the writ of habeas 
corpus. This healthy reaction was still further 
shown in wholesome judicial decisions in sev- 
eral Northern States affirming the citizenship of 
negroes, and denying the right of transit of slave- 
holders with their slaves over their soil. 

The struggle for the Speakership in this Con- 
gress, which lasted eight weeks, was also a first-rate 
training school for Republicanism. Helper's famous 
book, " The Impending Crisis," had made a decided 
sensation throughout the country, and John Sher- 
man, the principal candidate of the Republicans 
for Speaker, had endorsed it, though he now denied 
the fact. Mr. Millson of Virginia, declared that 
the man who " consciously, deliberately, and of 
purpose, lends his name and influence to the propa- 
gation of such writings, is not only not fit to be 
Speaker, but he is not fit to live." De Jarnette, of 
the same State, said that Mr. Seward was " a per- 
jured traitor, whom no Southerner could consist- 
ently support or even obey, should the nation 
elect him President." Mr. Pryor said that eight 
million Southern freemen could not be subjugated 
by any combination whatever, " least of all by a 
miscellaneous mob of crazy fanatics and conscience- 
stricken traitors." Mr. Kiett said that "should 
the Republican party succeed in the next Presi- 
dential election, my advice to the South is to snap 
the cords of the Union at once and forever." Mr. 
Crawford of Georgia said, " we will never submit to 



172 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the inauguration of a black Republican President"; 
and these and like utterances were applauded by 
the galleries. The growing madness and despe- 
ration in the Senate were equally noteworthy. This 
was shown by the removal of Mr. Douglas from 
the chairmanship of the Committee on Territories, 
and the determined purpose to read him out of the 
party for refusing to violate the principle of popular 
sovereignty in the Territory of Kansas. The 
attempt to hunt down a man who had done the 
South such signal service in dragooning the North- 
ern Democracy into its support could not fail to 
divide the party, and at the same time completely 
unmask the extreme and startling designs which 
the slave power had been stealthily maturing. But 
that power was now absolutely bent upon its pur- 
pose, and morally incapable of pausing in its work. 
Its demand was a slave code for the Territories, 
and it would accept nothing less. Jefferson Davis 
was the champion of this policy, which he em- 
bodied in a series of resolutions and made them the 
text of an elaborate argument ; and Mr. Douglas 
replied in a speech which at once vindicated himself 
and overwhelmingly condemned the party with 
which he had so long acted. The resolutions, how- 
ever, were adopted by the Senate, which thus pro- 
claimed its purpose to nationalize slavery. 

In the meantime these remarkable legislative pro- 
ceedings had their counterpart in increasing law- 
lessness and violence throughout the South. This 



PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. 173 

Avas illustrated in such facts as the expulsion of 
members of the Methodist Church North from 
Texas, the imprisonment of Rev. Daniel Worth, in 
North Carolina, for circulating Helper's " Impend- 
ing Crisis "; the exile from Kentucky of the Rev. 
John G. Fee and his colony of peaceable and law- 
abiding people, on account of their anti-slavery 
opinions ; and the espionage of the mails by every 
Southern postmaster, who under local laws had 
the power to condemn and " burn publicly " what- 
ever he deemed unfit for circulation, which laws 
had been pronounced constitutional by Caleb 
Cushing, while Attorney General of the United 
States under Mr. Pierce, and were " cheerfully 
acquiesced in " by Judge Holt, Postmaster Gen- 
eral under Buchanan. In Virginia the spirit of 
lawlessness became such a rage that one of her 
leading newspapers offered a reward of fifty thou- 
sand dollars for the head of Wm. H. Seward, 
while another paper offered ten thousand dollars 
for the kidnapping and delivery in Richmond of 
Joshua R. Giddings, or five thousand dollars for 
his head. In short, the reign of barbarism was 
at last fully ushered in, and the whole nation was 
beginning to realize the truth of Mr. Lincoln's 
declaration, which he borrowed from St. Mark, 
that "a house divided against itself can not 
stand." The people of the free States were at 
school, with the slaveholders as their masters ; 
and the dullest scholars were now beginning to get 
their lessons. Even the Know-Nothings and Silver- 



174 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

Grey Whigs were coming up to the anxious seat, 
under the enlightening influence and saving-grace 
of slaveholding madness and crime. The hour 
was ripe for action, and the dawn of freedom in 
the South was seen in the coming emancipation of 
the North. 

Tlie Presidential Campaign of i860 was a very 
singular commentary on the Compromise measures 
of 1850 and the "finality" platforms of 1852. The 
sectional agitation which now stirred the country 
outstripped all precedent, and completely demon-^, 
strated the folly of all schemes of compromise. 
The Democratic National Convention met in the 
city of Charleston on the twenty-third day of May. 
Its action now seems astounding, although it was 
the inevitable result of antecedent facts. The Dem- 
ocratic party had the control of every depart- 
ment of the Government, and a formidable popular 
majority behind it. It had the complete command 
of its own fortunes, and there was no cause or even 
excuse for the division which threatened its life. 
The difference between the Southern Democrats 
and the followers of Douglas was purely metaphys- 
ical, eluding entirely the practical common sense 
of the people. Both wings of the party now stood 
committed to the Dred Scott decision, and that sur- 
rendered everything which the extreme men of 
the South demanded. It was " a quarrel about 
goats' wool," and yet the Southern Democrats 
were maddened at the thought of submitting to 



PR O GRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. \ y 5 

the nomination of Douglas for the Presidency. 
His sin in the Lecompton matter was counted un- 
pardonable, and they seemed to hate him even more 
intensely than they hated the Abolitionists. A 
committee on resolutions was appointed, which sub- 
mitted majority and minority, or Douglas and 
anti-Douglas, reports. These were hotly debated, 
but the Douglas platform was adopted, which led 
to the secession of the Southern delegates. On 
the fifty-seventh ballot Mr. Douglas received a 
clear majority of the Electoral College, but the 
Convention then adjourned till the eighteenth of 
June, in the hope that harmony might in some way 
be restored. On reassembling this was found im- 
possible, and the balloting was resumed, which 
finally gave Mr. Douglas all the votes cast but 
thirteen, and he was declared the Democratic nom- 
inee. The Convention then nominated for the 
Vice Presidency Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia, 
a disciple of Calhoun, whose extreme opinions 
were well known. He was unequivocally com- 
mitted to the doctrine that neither the General 
Government nor a Territorial Government can 
impair the right of slave property in the common 
Territories. This illustration of the political prof- 
ligacy of the Douglas managers, and burlesque 
upon popular sovereignty, was as remarkable as 
the madness of the seceders in fighting him for his 
supposed anti-slavery proclivities. The bolters 
from this convention afterward nominated John C. 



176 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



Breckenridge as their candidate for President and 
Joseph Lane for Vice President. The Democratic 
canvass was thus inaugurated, and the overthrow 
of the party provided for in the mere wantonness 
of political folly. 

On the ninth of May what was called the Con- 
stitutional Union Party held its convention at Bal- 
timore, and nominated John Bell for President and 
Edward Everett for Vice President. It adopted no 
platform, and owing to its neutrality of tint, its 
action had no significance aside from its possible 
effect on the result of the struggle between the 
Democrats and Republicans. 

The Republican National Convention met at 
Chicago on the sixteenth of May. It was attended 
by immense numbers, and its action was regarded 
with profound and universal solicitude. The plat- 
form of the Convention affirmed the devotion of 
the party to the union of the States and the rights 
of the States; denounced the new dogma that the 
Constitution carried slavery into the Territories ; 
declared freedom to be their normal condition ; 
denied the power of Congress or of a Territorial 
Legislature to give legal existence to slavery in 
any territory ; branded as a crime the reopening of 
the African slave trade ; condemned the heresy of 
Know-Nothingism, and demanded the passage of a 
Homestead law. The principles of the party were 
thus broadly stated and fully re-affirmed, and the 
issues of the canvass very clearly presented. 



PR O GRESS . OF REPUBLICANISM. I 



// 



The leading candidates were Seward and Lincoln, 
who pretty evenly divided the Convention, and 
thus created the liveliest interest in the result. 
The friends of Mr. Seward had unbounded confi- 
dence in his nomination, and their devotion to his 
fortunes was intense and absolute. The radical 
anti-slavery element in the party idolized him, and 
longed for his success as for a great and coveted 
national blessing. The delegates from New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois, representing a 
superficial and only half-developed Republicanism, 
labored with untiring and exhaustless zeal for the 
nomination of Mr. Lincoln, fervently pleading for 
"Success rather than Seward." Henry S.Lane 
and Andrew G. Curtin, then candidates for Gov- 
ernor in the States of Indiana and Pennsylvania, 
respectively, were especially active and persistent, 
and their appeals were undoubtedly effective. 
When Seward was defeated many an anti-slaver\- 
man poured out his tears over the result, while de- 
ploring or denouncing the conservatism of old fos- 
sil Whiggery, which thus sacrificed the ablest man 
in the party, and the real hero of its principles. 
Time, however, led these men to reconsider their 
estimate both of Seward and Lincoln, and con- 
vinced them that the action of the convention, after 
all, was for the best. On the second ballot Ham- 
lin was nominated for Vice President over Clay, 
Banks, Hickman, and others, and the Republican 
campaign thus auspiciously inaugurated. 
12 



i;8 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

The canvass for Douglas was prosecuted with 
remarkable energy and zeal. He was himself the 
great leader of his party on the stump, and his 
efforts evinced singular courage, audacity, and will. 
It soon became evident, however, that his election 
was impossible; but this did not cool his ardor or 
relax his efforts. He kept up the fight to the end ; 
and after his defeat, and when he saw the power 
that had destroyed him organizing its forces for 
the destruction of the Union, he espoused the side 
of his country, and never faltered in his course. 
But as to slavery he seemed to have no conscience, 
regarding it as a matter of total moral indifference, 
and thus completely confounding the distinction 
between right and wrong. During the closing 
hours of his life he probably saw and lamented this 
strange infatuation ; and he must, at all events, have 
deplored the obsequious and studied devotion of a 
life-time to the service of a power which at last 
demanded both the sacrifice of his country and 
himself The canvass for Lincoln was conducted 
by the ablest men in the party, and was marked by 
great earnestness and enthusiasm. It was a repe- 
tition of the Fremont campaign, with the added 
difference of a little more contrivance and spec- 
tacular display in its demonstrations, as witnessed 
in the famous organization known as the " Wide- 
Awakes." The doctrines of the Chicago platform 
were very thoroughly discussed, and powerfully 
contributed to the further political education of the 



PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. 179 

people. The speeches of Mr. Seward were sin- 
gularly able, effective and inspiring, and he was 
the acknowledged leader of his party and the idol 
of the Republican masses everywhere. This was 
the day of his glory, and nothing yet foreshadowed 
the political eclipse which awaited him in the near 
future. The triumph of the Republicans in this 
struggle was not, however, final. A great work 
yet remained to be done. A powerful anti-slavery 
party had at last appeared, as the slow creation of 
events and the fruit of patient toil and endeavor ; 
but it had against it a popular majority of nearly 
a million. Both Houses of Congress and the 
Supreme Court of the United States disputed its 
authority and opposed its advance. The President- 
elect could not form his cabinet without the leave 
of the Senate, which was controlled by slavery, nor 
could he set the machinery of his Administration 
in motion, at home or abroad, through the exercise 
of his appointing power, without the consent of his 
political opponents. As Mr. Seward declared in 
the Senate, " he could not appoint a minister or 
even a police agent, negotiate a treaty or procure 
the passage of a law, and could hardly draw a 
musket from the public arsenal to defend his own 
person." The champions of slavery had no dream 
of surrender, and no excuse whatever for extreme 
measures ; and with moderate counsels and the 
prudent economy of their advantages, they were 
the undoubted masters of their own fortunes for 



l8o POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

indefinite years to come. But their extravagant 
and exasperating demands, and the splendid mad- 
ness of their latter day tactics as illustrated in their 
warfare against Douglas, were the sure presages of 
their overthrow. There was method in their mad- 
ness, but it was the method of self-destruction. 
This was made still more strikingly manifest during 
the months immediately preceding the inauguration 
of Mr. Lincoln. The Republicans, notwithstanding 
their great victory, so recoiled from the thought of 
sectional strife that for the sake of peace they were 
ready to forego their demand for the Congressional 
prohibition of slavery in the Territories. They 
were willing to abide by the Dred Scott decision 
and the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave law. 
They even proposed a Constitutional amendment 
which would have made slavery perpetual in the 
Republic; but the pampered frenzy of the slave 
oligarchy defied all remedies, and hurried it head- 
long into the bloody conspiracy which was to 
close forever its career of besotted lawlessness and 
crime. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 

Visit to Mr. LincoJrf^Closing months of Mr. Buchanan's Ad- 
ministration-VEfforts to avoid war — Character of Buchanan 
— Lincoln's Inauguration — His war policy — The grand army 
of office seekers — The July session of Congress — The at- 
mosphere of Washingtovi^Battle of Bull Run — Apologetic 
resolve of Congress-VFirst confiscation act — Gen. Fre- 
mont's proclamation and its effect — Its revocation — Regular 
session of Congress — Secretary Cameron — Committee on the 
conduct of the war — Its conference with the President and 
his Cabinet — Secretary Stanton 'and General McClellan — 
Order to march upon Manassas. 

Early in January, 1861, I paid a visit to Mr. 
Lincoln at his home in Springfield. I had a curi- 
osity to see the famous " rail splitter," as he was 
then familiarly called, and as a member-elect of the 
Thirty-seventh Congress I desired to form some ac- 
quaintance with the man who was to play so con- 
spicuous a part in the impending national crisis. 
Although I had zealously supported him in the 
canvass, and was strongly impressed by the grasp 
of thought and aptness of expression which 
marked his great debate with Douglas, yet as a 
thorough-going Free Soiler and a member of the 
radical wing of Republicanism, my prepossessions 

(181) 



1 82 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

were against him. He was a Kentuckian, and a 
conservative Whig, who had supported General 
Taylor in 1848, and General Scott four years later, 
when the Whig party finally sacrificed both its 
character and its life on the altar of slavery. His 
nomination, moreover, had been secured through 
the diplomacy of conservative Republicans, whose 
morbid dread of " abolitionism " unfitted them, as I 
believed, for leadership in the battle with slavery 
which had now become inevitable, while the de- 
feat of Mr. Seward had been to me a severe dis- 
appointment and a real personal grief. The rumor 
was also current, and generally credited, that 
Simon Cameron and Caleb B. Smith were to be 
made Cabinet Ministers, in recognition of the im- 
portant services rendered by the friends of these 
gentlemen in the Chicago Convention. Still, I did 
not wish to do Mr. Lincoln the slightest injustice^ 
while I hoped and believed his courage and firm- 
ness would prove equal to the emergency. 

On meeting him I found him far better looking 
than the campaign pictures had represented. His 
face, when lighted up in conversation, was not un- 
handsome, and the kindly and winning tones of his 
voice pleaded for him like the smile which played 
about his rugged features. He was full of anec- 
dote and humor, and readily found his way to the 
hearts of those who enjoyed a welcome to his fire- 
side. His face, however, was sometimes marked 
by that touching expression of sadness which be- 



NEW ADMINISTRATION A XD THE WAR. 183 

came so generally noticeable in the following years. 
On the subject of slavery I was gratified to find 
him less reserved and more emphatic than I ex- 
pected. The Cabinet rumor referred to was true. 
He felt bound by the pledges which his leading 
friends had made in his name pending the National 
Convention ; and the policy on which he acted in 
these and many other appointments was forcibly 
illustrated on a subsequent occasion, when I ear- 
nestly protested against the appointment of an in- 
competent and unworthy man as Commissioner of 
Patents. " There is much force in what you say," 
said he, " but, in the balancing of matters, I guess 
I shall have to appoint him." This "balancing 
of matters" was a source of infinite vexation dur- 
ing his administration, as it has been to every one 
of his successors ; and its most deplorable results 
have been witnessed in the assassination of a presi- 
dent. Upon the whole, however, I was much 
pleased with our first Republican Executive, and 
I returned home more fully inspired than ever with 
the purpose to sustain him to the utmost in facing 
the duties of his great office. 

The closing months of Mr. Buchanan's Admin- 
istration were dismal and full of apprehension. 
*One by one the slaveholding States were seceding 
from the Union. The President, in repeated mes- 
sages, denied their right to secede, but denied also 
the right of the Government to coerce them into 
obedience. It should be remembered, to his credit, 



184 ' POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

that he did insist upon the right to enforce the 
execution of the laws in all the States, and ear- 
nestly urged upon Congress the duty of arming 
him with the power to do this; but Congress, much 
to its discredit, paid no attention to his wishes, 
leaving the new Administration wholly unprepared 
for the impending emergency, while strangely up- 
braiding the retiring President for his non-action. 
For this there could be no valid excuse. The peo- 
ple of the Northern States, now that the movement 
in the South was seen to be something more than 
mere bluster, were equally alarmed and bewildered. 
The "New York Herald" declared that " coercion, 
if it were possible, is out of the question." The 
"Albany Argus" condemned it as " madness." 
The " Albany Evening Journal " and many other 
leading organs of Republicanism, East and West, 
disowned it, and counseled conciliation and further 
concessions to the demands of slavery. The " New 
York Tribune " emphatically condemned the pol- 
icy of coercion, and even after the cotton States 
had formed their Confederacy and adopted a pro- 
visional Government, it declared that " whenever 
it shall be clear that the great body of the South- 
ern people have become conclusively alienated 
from the Union and anxious to escape from it, we 
will do our best to forward their views." The 
" Tribune " had before declared that " whenever a 
considerable section of our Union shall deliberately 
resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive 



NE VV ADMINISTRA TJON AND THE WAR. 1 8 5 

measures designed to keep it in. We hope never 
to live in a Republic whereof one section is 
pinned to the other by bayonets." It is true, 
that it justified the secession of the Southern 
States as a revolutionary right; but although 
these States defended it as a constitutional one, 
the broader and higher ground of Mr. Greeley 
necessarily gave powerful aid and comfort to their 
movement. In the meantime, great meetings 
in Philadelphia and New York strongly con- 
demned the Abolitionists, and urged the most ex- 
travagant additional concessions to slavery for the 
sake of peace. On the 12th of January Mr. Sew- 
ard made his great speech in the Senate, declar- 
ing that he could "afford to meet prejudice with 
conciliation, exaction with concession which sur- 
renders no principle, and violence with the right 
hand of peace." He was willing to give up Con- 
gressional prohibition of slavery in the Territories, 
enforce the Fugitive Slave law, and perpetuate 
slavery in the Republic by amending the Constitu- 
tion for that purpose. The Crittenden compromise, 
which practically surrendered everything to slav- 
ery, only failed in the Senate by one vote, and this 
failure resulted from the non-voting of six rebel 
senators, who were so perfectly devil-bent upon 
the work of national dismemberment that they 
would not listen to any terms of compromise, or 
permit their adoption. The Peace Congress, as- 
sembled for the purpose of devising some means 



1 86 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

of national pacification, agreed upon a series of 
measures covering substantially the same ground 
as the Crittenden compromise, while both Houses 
of Congress agreed to a constitutional amendment 
denying any power to interfere with slavery " until 
every State in the Union, by its individual State 
action, shall consent to its exercise." The feverish 
dread of war which prevailed throughout the North- 
ern States was constantly aggravated by multiply- 
ing evidences of slaveholding desperation. The 
general direction of public opinion pointed to the 
Abolitionists as the authors of these national 
troubles, while the innocent and greatly-abused 
slaveholders were to be petted and placated by any 
measures which could possibly serve the purpose. 
Indeed, the spirit of Northern submission had 
never, in the entire history of the anti-slavery con- 
flict, been more strikingly exhibited than during 
the last days of the Thirty-sixth Congress, when the 
Capital of the Republic was threatened by armed 
treason, and the President-elect reached Washing- 
ton in a disguise which baffled the assassins who 
had conspired against his life. To the very last 
the old medicine of compromise and conciliation 
seemed to be the sovereign hope of the people of 
the free States ; and although it had failed utterly, 
and every offer of friendship and peace had been 
promptly spurned as the evidence of weakness or 
cowardice, they clung to it till the guns of Fort 
Sumter roused them from their perilous dream. 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 187 

The inauguration of the President was awaited 
with great anxiety and alarm. The capture of 
Washington by the rebels was seriously appre 
handed, and had undoubtedly been meditated. The 
air was filled with rumors respecting the assassina- 
tion of the President, and the stories told of the 
various methods of his taking off would have been 
amusing if the crisis had not been so serious. 
General Scott took all the precautions for the pres- 
ervation of the peace which the small force at his 
command, and the District militia, enabled him to 
do. The day was beautiful, and the procession to 
the Capitol quite imposing. Mr. Lincoln and ex- 
President Buchanan entered the Senate chamber 
arm in arm ; and the latter was so withered and 
bowed with age that in contrast with the towering 
form of Mr. Lincoln he seemed little more than 
half a man. The crowd which greeted the Presi- 
dent in front of the east portico of the Capitol was 
immense, and has never been equaled on any 
similar occasion with the single exception of 
General Garfield's inauguration. Mr. Lincoln's 
voice, though not very strong. or full-toned, rang 
out over the acres of people before him with sur- 
prising distinctness, and was heard in the remotest 
parts of his audience. The tone of moderation, 
tenderness, and good-will, which marked his ad- 
dress, made an evident impression, and the most 
heartfelt plaudits were called forth by the closing 
passage : 



POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



" We are not enemies, but friends. We must not 
be enemies. Though passion may have strained, 
it must not break, our bonds of affection. The 
mystic cords of memory, stretching from every 
battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart 
and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet 
swell the chorus of union, when again touched, as 
they surely will be, by the better angels of their 
nature." 

But as an offering of friendship and fair dealing 
to the South, this speech failed of its purpose as 
signally as all kindred endeavors had done from 
the beginning. The ** Richmond Enquirer" and 
*' Whig," the " Charleston Mercury," and other 
leading organs of secession, denounced the 
inaugural, and seemed to be maddened by the 
very kindliness of its tone and the moderation of 
its demands. Their purpose was disunion and 
war, and every passing day multiplied the proofs 
that no honorable escape from this fearful alterna- 
tive was possible. 

The policy of the new Administration prior to 
the attack upon Swmter forms perhaps the most 
remarkable chapter in the history of the war. All 
the troubles of the previous Administration were 
now turned over to Mr. Lincoln, and while no 
measures had been provided to aid him in their 
settlement the crisis was constantly becoming more 
imminent. The country was perfectly at sea ; and 
while all hope of reconciliation was fading from day 



NE WADMINISTRA TION AND THE WAR. \ 89 

to day, Mr. Seward insisted that peace would 
come within "sixty days." His optimism would 
have been most amusing, if the salvation of the 
country had not been at stake. The President 
himself not only still hoped, but believed, that there 
would be no war; and notwithstanding all the 
abuse that had been heaped upon Mr. Buchanan 
by the Republicans for his feeble and vacillating 
course, and especially his denial of the right of the 
government to coerce the recusant States, the 
policy of the new Administration, up to the attack 
upon Sumter, was identical with that of his prede- 
cessor. In Mr. Seward's official letter to Mr. 
Adams, dated April 10, 1861, he says the Presi- 
dent " would not be disposed to reject a cardinal 
dogma of theirs (the secessionists), namely, that the 
Federal Government could not reduce the seceding 
States to obedience by conquest, even though he 
were disposed to question that proposition. But 
in fact the President willingly accepts it as true. 
Only an imperial and despotic Government could 
subjugate thoroughly disaffected and insurrection- 
ary members of the State. >h * * ^\^^ Presi- 
dent, on the one hand, will not suffer the Federal 
authority to fall into abeyance, nor will he, on the 
other hand, aggravate existing evils by attempts at 
coercion, which must assume the direct form of war 
against any of the revolutionary States." These are 
very remarkable avowals, in the light of the absolute 
unavoidableness of the conflict at the time they 



190 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

were made ; and they naturally tended to precipi- 
tate rather than to avert the threatened catastrophe. 
It will not do to say that Secretary Seward spoke 
only for himself, and not for the Administration; 
for the fact has since been established by the evi- 
dence of other members of the Cabinet that Mr. 
Lincoln, while he had great faith in Mr. Seward at 
first, was always himself the President. No mem- 
ber of it was his dictator. I do not say that he en- 
dorsed all Mr. Seward's peculiar views, for the 
latter went still further, as the country has since 
learned, and favored the abandonment of Fort 
Sumter and other Southern forts, as a part of a 
scheme of pacification looking to an amendment 
of the Constitution in the interest of slavery. 
During this early period Mr. Chase himself, with 
all his anti-slavery radicalism and devotion to the 
Union, became so far the child of the hour as to 
deprecate the policy of coercion and express his 
belief that if the rebel States were allowed to go in 
peace they would soon return. But " war legis- 
lates," and the time had now come when noth- 
ing else could break the spell of irresolution and 
blindness which threatened the Union even more 
seriously than armed treason itself 

Notwithstanding this strange epoch of Republi- 
can feebleness and indecision, the warfare against 
Mr. Buchanan was never intermitted. It had been 
prosecuted with constantly increasing vigor since 
the year 1856, and had now become so perfectly 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 19 1 



relentless and overwhelming that he was totally- 
submerged by the waves of popular wrath ; and for 
twenty odd years no political resurrection has been 
thought possible. Although his personal integrity 
was as unquestionable as that of John C. Calhoun 
or George III, and his private life as stainless, 
yet his public character has received no quarter 
from his enemies and but little defense from his 
friends. One of his most formidable critics, writ- 
ing long years after the war, describes him as 
" hungry for regard, influence and honor, but too 
diminutive in intellect and character to feel the 
glow of true ambition — a man made, so to speak, 
to be neither loved nor hated, esteemed nor de- 
spised, slighted nor admired ; intended to play an 
influential part in the agitation of parties, and by 
history to be silently numbered with the dead, be- 
cause in all his doings there was not a single deed ; 
a man to whom fate could do nothing worse than 
place him at the helm in an eventful period." 
While there is a measure of truth in this picture, I 
believe any fair-minded man will pronounce it over- 
drawn, one-sided, and unjust, after reading the re- 
cently published life of Mr. Buchanan by George 
Ticknor Curtis, dealing fully with his entire public 
career in the clear, cold light of historic facts. 
The most pronounced political foe of Mr. Buchan- 
an can not go over the pages of this elaborate 
and long-delayed defense without modifying some 
of his most decided opinions ; but one thing remains 



192 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

obviously true, and that is that in dealing with 
the question of slavery Mr. Buchanan was wholly 
without a conscience. The thought seems never to 
have dawned upon him that the slave was a man, 
and therefore entitled to his natural rights. In a pub- 
lic speech on the ninth of July, i860, defining his 
position, and referring to the Dred Scott decision, he 
says : "" It is to me the most extraordinary thing in 
the world that this country should now be distracted 
and divided because certain persons at the North 
will not agree that their brethren at the South 
should have the same rights in the Territories 
which they enjoy. What would I, as a Pennsyl- 
vanian, say or do, supposing any one was to con- 
tend that the Legislature of any Territory could 
outlaw iron or coal within the Territory.? ,The 
principle is precisely the same. The Supreme 
Court of the United States has decided, what was 
known to us all to have been the existing state 
of affairs for fifty years, that slaves are property. 
Admit that fact, and you admit everything." 

In this passage, as in all that he has written on 
the subject of slavery, humanity is totally ignored. 
The right of property in man is just as sacred to 
him, " as a Pennsylvanian," as the right of prop- 
erty in iron or coal. He unhesitatingly accepts 
the Dred Scott decision as law, which the moral 
sense of the nation and its ablest jurists pronounced 
a nullity. Mr. Jefferson, in speaking of slavery, 
said he trembled for his country, and declared that 



NEW ADMINISTRATION A i\D THE WAR. 193 

one hour of bondage is fraught with more misery 
than whole ages of our colonial oppression. Such 
a sentiment in the mouth of Mr. Buchanan would 
have been as unnatural as a voice from the dead. 
He saw nothing morally offensive in slavery, or 
repugnant to the principles of Democracy. He 
reverenced the Constitution, but always forgot that 
its compromises were agreed to in the belief that 
the institution was in a state of decay, and would 
soon wear out its life under the pressure of public 
opinion and private interest. Throughout his 
public life he never faltered in his devotion to the 
South, joining hands with alacrity in every meas- 
ure which sought to nationalize her sectional in- 
terest. The growing anti-slavery opinion of the 
free States, which no power could prevent, and the 
great moral currents of the times, which were as 
resistless as the tides of the sea, had no meaning 
for him, because the Democracy he believed in had 
no foundation in the sacredness of human rights. 
Mr. Lincoln, in spite of the troubled state of 
the country, was obliged to encounter an army of 
place-seekers at the very beginning of his admin- 
istration. I think there has been nothing like it in 
the history of the Government. A Republican 
member of Congress could form some idea of the 
President's troubles from his own experience. I 
fled from my home in the latter part of February, 
in the hope of finding some relief from these im- 
portunities; but on reaching Washington I found 
13 



1 94 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the business greatly aggravated. The pressure 
was so great and constant that I could scarcely 
find time for my meals, or to cross the street, and 
I was obliged to give my days and nights wholly 
to the business, hoping in this way I should be 
able in a little while to finish it ; but it constantly 
increased. I met at every turn a swarm of mis- 
cellaneous people, many of them looking as hungry 
and fierce as wolves, and ready to pounce upon 
members as they passed, begging for personal in- 
tercession, letters of recommendation, etc. During 
my stay in Washington through the months of 
March and April, there was no pause in this busi- 
ness. After Fort Sumter had been taken and the 
armory at Harper's Ferry had been burned ; after a 
Massachusetts regiment had been fired on in pass- 
ing through Baltimore, and thirty thousand men 
were in Washington for defensive purposes; after 
the President had called for seventy-five thousand 
volunteers, and the whole land was in a blaze of 
excitement, the scuffle for place was unabated, and 
the pressure upon the strength and patience of the 
President unrelieved. This was not very remark- 
able, considering the long-continued monopoly, of 
the offices by the Democrats ; but it jarred upon the 
sentiment of patriotism in such a crisis, and to 
those who were constantly brought face to face 
with it, it sometimes appeared as if the love of 
office alone constituted the animating principle of 
the party. 



NEW ADMINISl RATION AND THE WAR. 195 

When Congress assembled in special session on 
the Fourth of July, the atmosphere of the Northern 
States had been greatly purified by the attack on 
Fort Sumter. The unavoidableness of war was 
now absolute, and the tone of the President's mes- 
sage was far bolder and better than that of his in- 
augural. The policy of tenderness towards slav- 
ery, however, still revealed itself, and called forth 
the criticism of the more radical Republicans. 
They began to distrust Mr. Seward, who no longer 
seemed to them the hero of principle they had so 
long idolized, while his growing indifference to the 
virtue of temperance was offensive to many. He 
impressed his old anti- slavery friends as a deeply 
disappointed man, who was in danger of being 
morally lost. Their faith was even a little shaken 
in Secretary Chase. Of course, they did not be- 
lieve him false to his long-cherished anti-slavery 
convictions, but he was amazingly ambitious, and 
in the dispensation of his patronage he seemed 
anxious to make fair weather with some of his old 
conservative foes, while apparently forgetting the 
faithful friends who had stood by him from the 
very beginning of his career, and were considered 
eminently fit for the positions they sought. The 
rumor was afloat that even Charles Sumner was 
urging the claims of Mr. Crittenden to a place on 
the Supreme Bench, as a means of conciliating the 
State of Kentucky. Washington was largely a 
city of secessionists, and the departments of the 



196 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS, 

Government were plentifully supplied by sympa- 
thizers with treason, while the effort put forth at 
this session to dislodge them was not responded to 
by the Administration. What became known as 
the Border State policy was beginning to assert 
itself everywhere, and was strikingly illustrated in 
the capture of fugitive slaves and their return to 
their rebel masters by our commanding generals, 
and by reiterated and gratuitous disavowals of 
'* abolitionism " by prominent Republicans. 

But the war spirit was fully aroused, and active 
preparations were on foot for an advance upon the 
enemy. The confidence in General Scott seemed 
to be unbounded, and I found everybody taking it 
for granted that when the fight began our forces 
would prove triumphantly victorious. On the 
day before the battle of Bull Run I obtained a pass 
from General Scott, intending to witness the en- 
gagement, believing I could do so, of course, with 
perfect safety, as our army would undoubtedly 
triumph. I had a very strong curiosity to see a 
great battle, and was now gratified with the pros- 
pect of doing so; but a lucky accident detained 
me. The battle was on Sunday, and about eleven 
o'clock at night I was roused from my slumber by 
Col. Forney, who resided on Capital Hill near my 
lodgings, and who told me our army had been 
routed, and that the rebels were marching upon the 
capital and would in all probability capture it be- 
fore morning. No unmiraculous event could have 



XEW ADMIXISTRATION AND THE WAR. 197 

been more startling. I was perfectly stunned and 
dumbfounded by the news; but I hastened down 
to the Avenue as rapidl}/ as possible, and found the 
space between the Capitol and the Treasury Build- 
ing a moving mass of humanity. Every man 
seemed to be asking every man he met for the 
latest news, while all sorts of rumors filled the air. 
A feeling of mingled horror and despair appeared to 
possess everybody. The event was so totally un- 
looked for, and the disappointment so terrible, that 
people grew suddenly sick at heart, and felt as if 
life itself, with all its interests and charms, had been 
snatched from their grasp. The excitement, tur- 
moil and consternation continued during the night 
and through the following day; but no one could 
adequately picture or describe it. Our soldiers 
came stragglirtg into the city, covered with dirt 
and many of them wounded, while the panic 
which led to the disaster spread like a contagion 
through all classes. 

On the day following this battle Congress met 
as usual, and undoubtedly shared largely in the 
general feeling. A little before the battle General 
Mansfield had issued an order declaring that fugi- 
tive slaves would under no circumstances whatever 
be permitted to reside or be harbored in the quar- 
ters and camps of the troops serving in his depart- 
ment; and now, both Houses of Congress prompt- 
ly and with great unanimity and studious emphasis 
declared that the purpose of the war was not the 



198 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

"conquest" or "subjugation" of the conspirators 
who were striking at the Nation's lite, or the over- 
throw of their " estabhshed institutions," but to de- 
fend "the supremacy of the Constitution," and to 
"preserve the Union"; and that "as soon as these 
objects are accomplished the war ought to cease." 
To thorough-going anti-slavery men this seemed 
like an apology for the war, and a most ill-timed 
revival of the policy of conciliation, which had 
been so uniformly and contemptuously spurned 
by the enemy. It failed utterly of its purpose, and 
this historic resolve of Congress was only useful 
to the rebels, who never failed to wield it as a 
weapon against us, after the teaching of events had 
compelled us to make slavery the point of attack. 
The Confiscation Act of the 6th of August was re- 
garded as a child of the same sickly ancestry. 
The section of the Act making free the slaves em- 
ployed against us by the rebels in their military 
operations was criticised as a bribe to them to fight 
us, rather than a temptation to espouse our cause. 
If they engaged in the war at all, they were obliged 
to do so as our enemies ; but if they remained 
at home on their plantations in the business of 
feeding the rebel armies, they would have the pro- 
tection of both the loyal and Confederate Govern- 
ments. The policy of both parties to the struggle 
was thus subordinated to the protection of slavery. 
But on the 31st of August a new war policy was 
inaugurated by the proclamation of General Fre- 



NEW ADMIXISTRATION AND THE WAR. 199 



mont, giving freedom to the slaves of rebels in his 
department. It was greeted by the people of the 
Northern States with inexpressible gladness and 
thanksgiving. The Republican press everywhere 
applauded it, and even such Democratic and con- 
servative papers as the "Boston Post," the " Detroit 
Free Press," the *' Chicago Times," and the " New 
York Herald " approved it. During the ten days 
of its life all party lines seemed to be obliterated 
in the fires of popular enthusiasm which it kindled, 
and which Avas wholly unprecedented in my ex- 
perience. I was then on the stump in my own 
State, and I found the masses everywhere so wild 
with joy, that I could scarcely be heard for their 
shouts. As often as I mentioned the name of "Fre- 
mont," the prolonged hurrahs of the multitude fol- 
lowed, and the feeling seemed to be universal that 
the policy of " a war on peace principles " was 
abandoned, and that slavery, the real cause of the 
war, was no longer to be the chief obstacle to its 
prosecution. 

But in the midst of this general exultation and 
joy the President annulled the proclamation be- 
cause it went beyond the Confiscation Act of the 
6th of August, and was offensive to the Border 
States. It was a terrible disappointment to the 
Republican masses, who could not understand 
why loyal slaveholders in Kentucky should be of- 
fended because the slaves of rebels in Missouri were 
declared free. From this revocation of the new 



200 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



war policy, dated the pro-slavery reaction which at 
once followed. It balked the popular enthusiasm 
which was drawing along with it multitudes of 
conservative men. It caused timid and halting 
men to become cowards outright. It gave new 
life to slavery, and encouraged fiercer assaults 
upon ''abolitionism." It revived and stimulated 
Democratic sympathy for treason wherever it had 
existed, and necessarily prolonged the conflict and 
aggravated its sorrows; while it repeated the ineffa- 
ble folly of still relying upon a policy of modera- 
tion and conciliation in dealing with men who had 
defiantly taken their stand outside of the Constitu- 
tion and laws, and could only be reached by the 
power of war. 

When Congress met in December, the policy of 
deference to slavery still continued. The message 
of the President was singularly dispassionate, 
deprecating *' radical and extreme measures," and 
recommending some plan of colonization for the 
slaves made free by the Confiscation Act. Secre- 
tary Cameron, however, surprised the country 
by the avowal of a decidedly anti-slavery war 
policy in his report; but in a discussion in the 
House early in December, on General Halleck's 
" Order No. Three," I took occasion to expose his 
insincerity by referring to his action a little while 
before in restoring to her master a slave girl who 
had fled to the camp of Colonel Brown, of the 
Twentieth Indiana regiment, who had refused to 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 2OI 

give her up. On the nineteenth of December, a 
joint select Committee on the Conduct of the War 
was appointed, composed of three members of the 
Senate and four members of the House. The 
Senators were B. F. Wade, of Ohio; Z. Chandler, 
of Michigan, and Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee ; 
and the House members were John Covode, of 
Pennsylvania; M. F. Odell, of New York; D. W. 
Gooch, of Massachusetts, and myself. The com- 
mittee had its birth in the popular demand for a 
more vigorous prosecution of the war, and less 
tenderness toward slavery ; and I was gratified 
with my position on it because it afforded a very 
desirable opportunity to learn something of the 
movements of our armies and the secrets of our 
policy. 

On the sixth of January, by special request of 
the President, the committee met him and his Cab- 
inet at the Executive Mansion, to confer about the 
military situation. The most striking fact revealed 
by the discussion which took place was that neither 
the President nor his advisers seemed to have any 
definite information respecting the management of 
the war, or the failure of our forces to make any 
forward movement. Not a man of them pretended 
to know anything of General McClellan's plans. 
We were greatly surprised to learn that Mr. Lin- 
coln himself did not think he had any right to know, 
but that, as he was not a military man, it was his 
duty to defer to General McClellan. Our grand 



202 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

armies were ready and eager to march, and the 
whole country was anxiously waiting some decisive 
movement; but during the delightful months of 
October, November and December, they had been 
kept idle for some reason which no man could ex- 
plain, but which the President thought could be 
perfectly accounted for by the General-in-Chief. 
Secretary Cameron said he knew nothing of any 
plan for a forward movement. Secretary Seward 
had entire confidence in General McClellan, and 
thought the demand of the committee for a more 
vigorous policy uncalled for. The Postmaster- 
General made no definite avowals, while the other 
members of the Cabinet said nothing, except Secre- 
tary Chase, who very decidedly sympathized with 
the committee in its desire for some early and deci- 
sive movement of our forces. The spectacle seemed 
to us very disheartening. The testimony of all the 
commanding generals we had examined showed 
that our armies had been ready to march for months; 
that the weather and roads had been most favora- 
ble since October ; and that the Army of the Poto- 
mac was in a fine state of discipline, and nearly two 
hundred thousand strong, while only about forty 
thousand men were needed to make Washington 
perfectly safe. Not a general examined could tell 
why this vast force had so long been kept idle, or 
what General McClellan intended to do. The fate 
of the nation seemed committed to one man called 
a " General-in-Chief," who communicated his 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 203 

secrets to no human being, and who had neither 
age nor military experience to justify the extraor- 
dinary deference of the President to his wishes. 
He had repeatedly appeared before the committee, 
though not yet as a witness, and we could see no 
evidence of his pre-eminence over other'prominent 
commanders ; and it seemed like a betrayal of the 
country itself to allow him to hold our grand 
armies for weeks and months in unexplained idle- 
ness, on the naked assumption of his superior wis- 
dom. Mr. Wade, as Chairman of the committee, 
echoed its views in a remarkably bold and vigor- 
ous speech, in which he gave a summary of the 
principal facts which had come to the knowledge 
of the committee, arraigned General McClellan for 
the unaccountable tardiness of his movements, and 
urged upon the Administration, in the most undip- 
lomatic plainness of speech, an immediate and 
radical change in the policy of the war. But the 
President and his advisers could not yet be disen- 
chanted, and the conference ended without results. 
When General McClellan was placed at the head 
of our armies the country accepted him as its idol 
and hero. The people longed for a great captain, 
and on very inadequate grounds they assumed 
that they had found him, and that the business of 
war was to be carried on in earnest. But they 
were doomed to disappointment, and the popular 
feeling was at length completely reversed. The 
pendulum vibrated to the other extreme, and it is 



204 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

not easy to realize the wide-spread popular discon- 
tent which finally revealed itself respecting the 
dilatory movements of our forces. The people 
became inexpressibly weary of the reiterated bul- 
letins that "all is quiet on the Potomac"; and the 
fact that General McClellan was in full sympathy 
with "the Border State policy of the President 
aggravated their unfriendly mood. A majority of 
the members of the committee became morbidly 
sensitive, and were practically incapable of doing 
General McClellan justice. They were thoroughly 
discouraged and disgusted ; but when Secretary 
Cameron left the Cabinet and Stanton took his 
place, their despondency gave place to hope. He 
had faith in the usefulness of the committee, and 
co-operated with it to the utmost. He agreed 
with us fully in our estimate of General McClellan, 
and as to the necessity of an early forward move- 
ment. We were delighted with him, and had per- 
fect confidence in his integrity, sagacity and strong 
will. We worked from five to six hours per day, 
including the holiday season, and not excepting 
the Sabbath, going pretty thoroughly into the Bull 
Run disaster, the battle of Ball's Bluff, and the man- 
agement of the Western Department. 

During the months of January and February, 
the committee made repeated visits to the President 
for the purpose of urging the division of the 
Army of the Potomac and its organization into 
army corps. We insisted upon this on the strength 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 205 

of the earnest recommendations of our chief com- 
manders, and with a view to greater military effi- 
ciency ; but the President said General McClellan 
was opposed to it, and would, he believed, resign 
his command in the alternative of being required 
to do it. Mr. Lincoln said he dreaded "the moral 
effect of this "; but in the latter part of February, 
he beg-an to lose his faith in the General, and 
finally, after nearly two months of perseverance by 
the committee, he gave his order early in March, 
which General McClellan obeyed with evident hesi- 
tation and very great reluctance. A few days later 
the long-tried patience of the President became 
perfectly exhausted. He surprised and delighted 
the committee by completely losing his temper, 
and on the nth relieved General McClellan from 
the command of all our forces except the Army of 
the Potomac. The rebels, in the meantiine, had 
evacuated their works at Centreville and Manassas, 
and retreated with their munitions in safety. A 
majority of the committee at this time strongly 
suspected that General McClellan was a traitor, 
and they felt strengthened in this suspicion by 
what they afterward saw for themselves at Centre- 
ville and Manassas, which they visited on the 
thirteenth of March. They were certain, at all 
events, that his heart was not in the work. He 
had disregarded the President's general order of 
the nineteenth of January, for a movement of all 
our armies, which resulted in the series of vie- 



206 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

tories of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, etc., which 
so electrified the country. He had protested 
against the President's order of the thirty-first of 
January, directing an expedition for the purpose 
of seizing a point upon the railroad southwest of 
Manassas Junction. He had opposed all forward 
movements of the Army of the Potomac, and reso- 
lutely set his face against the division of our forces 
into army corps, as urged by all our chief com- 
manders. And he had again and again refused to 
co-operate with the navy in breaking up the 
blockade of the Potomac, while his order to move 
in the direction of the enemy at Centreville and 
Manassas was given after the evacuation of these 
points. 

Our journey to Manassas was full of interest and 
excitement. About ten miles from Washington 
we came in sight of a large division of the Grand 
Army of the Potomac, which had started toward 
the enemy in obedience to the order of General 
McClellan. The forest on either side of the road 
was alive with soldiers, and their white tents were 
to be seen in all directions through the pine forests, 
while in the adjacent fields vast bodies of soldiers 
in their uniforms were marching and counter- 
marching, their bayonets glittering in the sun- 
light. Large bodies of cavalry were also in mo- 
tion, and the air was filled with the sound of mar- 
tial music and the blasts of the bugle. Soldiers 
not on drill were running races, playing ball, and 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 20/ 

enjoying themselves generally in every sort of 
sport. The spectacle was delightfully exhilarat- 
ing, and especially so to men just released from 
the dreary confinement and drudgery of their com- 
mittee rooms. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR (CON- 
TINUED). 

The wooden guns — Conference willi Secretary Stanton — His 
relations to Lincoln — Strife between Radicalism and Con- 
servatism — Passage of the Homestead Law — Visit to the 
President — The Confiscation Act and rebel landowners — 
Greeley's "prayer of twenty millions," and Lincoln's reply 
— Effort to disband the Republican party — The battle of 
Fredericksburg and General Burnside — The Proclamation of 
Emancipation — Visit to Mr. Lincoln — General Fremont — 
Report of the War Committee— Visit to Philadelphia and 
New York — Gerrit Smith — T!ie Morgan Raid. 

On approaching Centreville the first object that 
attracted our attention was one of the huge earth- 
works of the enemy, with large logs placed in the 
embrasures, the ends pointing toward us, and 
painted black, in imitation of cannon. The earth- 
works seemed very imperfectly constructed, and 
from this fact, and the counterfeit guns which sur- 
mounted them, it was evident that no fight had 
been seriously counted on by the absconding 
forces. The substantial character of their bar- 
racks, bake- ovens, stables, and other improvements, 
confirmed this view; and on reaching Manassas 
we found the same cheap defenses and the same 
(208) 



NEW ADMIXISTRATIOX AND THE WAR. 209 

evidences of security, while the rebel forces were 
much less than half as great as ours, and within a 
day's march from us. What was the explanation of 
all this ? Why had we not, long before, driven in 
the rebel pickets, and given battle to the enemy, 
or at least ascertained the facts as to the w^eakness 
of his position ? Could the commander be loyal 
who had opposed all the previous forward move- 
ments of our forces, and only made this advance 
after the enemy had evacuated ? These were the 
questions canvassed by the members of the com- 
mittee in their passionate impatience for decisive 
measures, and which they afterward earnestly 
pressed upon the President as a reason for reliev- 
ing General McClellan of his command. They 
were also greatly moved by the fact already 
referred to, that General McClellan had neglected 
and repeatedly refused to co-operate with the navy 
in breaking up the blockade of the Potomac, which 
could have been done long before according to 
the testimony of our commanders, while he had 
disobeyed the positive order of the President 
respecting the defenses of Washington by reserv- 
ing only nineteen thousand imperfectly disciplined 
men for that service, through which the capital had 
been placed at the mercy of the enemy. Mean- 
while the flame of popular discontent had found 
further fuel in the threats of McClellan to put 
down slave insurrections " with an iron hand," and 
his order expelling the Hutchinson from the Army 
U 



21 O POLITICAL RECOLLECTIOXS. 

of the Potomac for singing Whittier's songs of 
liberty. Of course I am not dealing with the 
character and capacity of General McClellan as a 
commander, but simply depicting the feeling which 
extensively prevailed at this time, and which j ustified 
itself by hastily accepting merely apparent facts as 
conclusive evidence against him. 

On the 24th day of March, Secretary Stanton 
sent for the committee for the purpose of having a 
confidential conference as to military affairs. He 
was thoroughly discouraged. He told us the 
President had gone back to his first love as to Gen- 
eral McClellan, and that it was needless for him or 
for us to labor with him, although he had finally 
been prevailed on to restrict McClellan's command 
to the Army of the Potomac. The Secretary 
arraigned the General's conduct in the severest 
terms, particularizing his blunders, and branding 
them. He told us the President was so completely 
in the power of McClellan that he had recently 
gone to Alexandria in person to ask him for some 
troops from the Army of the Potomac for General 
Fremont, which were refused. He said he believed 
there were traitors among the commanders sur- 
rounding General McClellan, and if he had had 
the power he would have dismissed eight com- 
manders when the wooden-gun discovery was 
made ; and he fully agreed with us as to the dis- 
graceful fact that our generals had not long before 
discovered, as they could have done, the real 
facts as to the rebel forces and their defenses. 



NE W ADMINISTRA TION AND THE WAR. 211 

It was quite evident from these facts that Stan- 
ton, with all his force of will, did not rule the Presi- 
dent, as the public has generally supposed. He 
would frequently overawe and sometimes browbeat 
others, but he was never imperious in dealing with 
Mr. Lincoln. This I have from Mr. Watson, for 
some time Assistant Secretary of War, and Mr. 
Whiting while Solicitor of the War Department. 
Lincoln, however, had the highest opinion of Stan- 
ton, and their relations were always most kindly, 
as the following anecdote bears v*^itness : A com- 
mittee of Western men, headed by Lovejoy, pro- 
cured from the President an important order look- 
ing to the exchange and transfer of Eastern and 
Western soldiers with a view to more effective work. 
Repairing to the office of the Secretary, Mr. Love- 
joy explained the scheme, as he had before done to 
the President, but was met with a flat refusal. 

** But we have the President's order, sir," said 
Lovejoy. 

"Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind?" 
said Stanton. 

" He did, sir." 

" Then he is a d d fool," said the irate secre- 
tary. 

" Do you mean to say the President is a d d 

fool ? " asked Lovejoy, in amazement. 

"Yes, sir, if he gave you such an order as that." 

The bewildered Illinoisan betook himself at once 
to the President, and related the result of his con- 
ference. 



212 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

" Did Stanton say I was a d d fool ? " asked 

Lincoln at the close of the recital. 

'* He did, sir, and repeated it." 

After a moment's pause, and looking up, the 

President said, " If Stanton said I was a d d fool, 

then I must be one, for he is nearly always right, 
and generally says what he means. I will step 
over and see him." 

Whether this anecdote is literally true or not, 
it illustrates the character of the two men. 

On Sunday, the thirteenth of April, we were 
again summoned to meet Secretary Stanton, and he 
had also invited Thaddeus Stevens, of the House 
Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Fessenden, of 
the Senate Finance Committee, and Mr. Wilson and 
Colonel Blair, of the Senate and House Military 
Committees. The business of this conference was 
to consider the necessity of immediate measures for 
raising thirty million dollars to pay the troops un- 
wisely accepted by the President in excess of the 
number called for by Congress, and the proper action 
to be taken relative to the sale of Austrian guns by 
a house in New York for shipment to the enemy. 
The Secretary was this time in fine spirits, and I 
was much interested in the free talk which occurred. 
Mr. Stevens indulged in his customary bluntness 
of speech, including a little spice of profanity by 
way of emphasis and embellishment. He declared 
that not a man in the Cabinet, the present com- 
pany excepted, was fit for his business. Mr. Fes- 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 21 3 

senden said he fully endorsed this, while s.ly glances 
were made at Colonel Blair, whose brother was 
thus palpably hit. Mr. Stevens said he was tired 

of hearing d d Republican cowards talk about 

the Constitution ; that there was no Constitution 
any longer so far as the prosecution of the war was 
concerned ; and that we should strip the rebels of 
all their rights, and give them a reconstruction on 
such terms as would end treason forever. Secre- 
tary Stanton agreed to every word of this, and said 
it had been his policy from the beginning. Fes- 
senden denounced slave-catching in our army, and 
referred to a recent case in which fugitives came 
to our lines with the most valuable information as 
to rebel movements, and were ordered out of camp 
into the clutches of their hunters. Stanton said 
that ten days before McClellan marched toward 
Manassas, contrabands had come to him with the 
information that the rebels were preparing to re- 
treat, but that McClellan said he could not trust 
them. Wade was now roused, and declared that 
he had heard McClellan say he had uniformly 
found the statements of these people reliable, and 
had got valuable information from them. But 
McClellan was still king, and the country was a 
long way yet from that vigorous war policy which 
alone could save it. 

In the meantime the strife between the radical and 
conservative elements in the Republican party found 
expression in other directions. Secretary Seward, in 



214 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

his letter to Mr. Dayton, of the 22d of April, de- 
clared that "the rights of the States and the condi- 
tion of every human being in them will remain sub- 
ject to exactly the same laws and forms of admin- 
istration, whether the revolution shall succeed or 
whether it shall fail." Secretary Smith had pre- 
viously declared, in a public speech, that " this is not 
a war upon the institution of slavery, but a war for 
the restoration of the Union," and that " there could 
not be found in South Carolina a man more anxious, 
religiously and scrupulously, to observe all the feat- 
ures of the Constitution, than Abraham Lincoln." 
He also opposed the arming of the negroes, declar- 
ing that " it would be a disgrace to the people of the 
free States to call on four millions of blacks to aid 
in putting down eight millions of whites." Similar 
avowals were made by other members of the Cabinet. 
This persistent purpose of the Administration to 
save the Union and save slavery with it, naturally 
provoked criticism, and angered the anti-slavery 
feehng of the loyal States. The business of slave- 
catching in the army continued the order of the day, 
till the pressure of public opinion finally compelled 
Congress to prohibit it by a new article of war, 
which was approved by the President on the 13th 
of March. The repressive power of the Administra- 
tion, however, was very formidable, and although 
the House of Representatives, as early as the 20th 
of December, 1861, had adopted a resolution offered 
by myself, instructing the Judiciary Committee to 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 21 5 

report a bill so amending the Fugitive Slave Act 
of 1850 as to forbid the return of fugitives without 
proof first made of the loyalty of the claimant, yet 
on the 26th of May, 1862, the House, then over- 
whelmingly Republican, voted down a bill declar- 
ing free the slaves of armed rebels, and making 
proof of loyalty by the claimant of a fugitive neces- 
sary to his recovery. This vote sorely disappointed 
the anti-slavery sentiment of the country. On this 
measure I addressed the House in a brief speech, 
the spirit of which was heartily responded to by my 
constituents and the people of the loyal States gen- 
erally. They believed in a vigorous prosecution of 
the war, and were sick of "the never-ending gabble 
about the sacredness of the Constitution." " It will 
not be forgotten," I said, " that the red-handed mur- 
derers and thieves who set this rebellion on foot 
went out of the Union yelping for the Constitution 
which they had conspired to overthrow by the 
blackest perjury and treason that ever confronted 
the Almighty." This speech was the key-note of 
my approaching Congressional canvass, and I was 
one of the very few men of decided anti-slavery con- 
victions who were able to stem the conservative 
tide which swept over the Northern States during 
this dark and dismal year. I had against me the 
general drift of events ; the intense hostility of Gov- 
ernor Morton and his friends throughout the State ; 
nearly all the politicians in the District, and nine of 
its twelve Republican newspapers, and the des- 



2l6 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

perate energy and cunning of trained leaders in both 
political parties, who had pursued me like vultures 
for a dozen years. My triumph had no taint of 
compromise in it, and nothing saved me but perfect 
courage and absolute defiance of my foes. 

One of the great compensations of the war was 
the passage of the. Homestead Act of the 20th of 
May. It finally passed the House and Senate by 
overwhelming majorities. Among the last acts of 
Mr. Buchanan's administration was the veto of a 
similar measure, at the bidding of his Southern 
masters; and the friends of the policy had learned 
in the struggle of a dozen years that its success was 
not possible while slavery ruled the government. 
The beneficent operation of this great and far- 
reaching measure, however, was seriously crippled 
by some unfortunate facts. In the first place, it pro- 
vided no safeguards against speculation in the pub- 
lic domain, which had so long scourged the West- 
ern States and Territories, and was still extending 
its ravages. Our pioneer settlers were offered homes 
of one hundred and sixty acres each on condition ■ 
of occupancy and improvement, but the speculator 
could throw himself across their track by buying 
up large bodies of choice land to be held back from 
settlement and tillage for a rise in price, and thus 
force them further into the frontier, and on to less 
desirable lands. 

In the next place, under the new and unguarded 
land-grant policy, which was simultaneously in- 



NE W ADMINISTRA TION AND THE WAR. 21/ 

augurated, millions of acres fell into the clutches of 
monopolists, and are held by them to-day, which 
would have gone to actual settlers under the Home- 
stead law, and the moderate land -grant policy orig- 
inated by Senator Douglas in 1850. This was not 
foreseen or intended. The nation was then engaged 
in a struggle for its existence, and thus exposed to 
the evils of hasty legislation. The value of the lands 
given away was not then understood as it has been 
since, while the belief was universal that the lands 
granted would be restored to the public domain on 
failure to comply with the conditions of the grants. 
The need of great highways to the Pacific was then 
regarded as imperative, and unattainable without 
large grants of the public lands. These are exten- 
uating facts; but the mischiefs of this ill-starred leg- 
islation are none the less to be deplored. 

In the third place, under our new Indian treaty 
policy, invented about the same time, large bodies 
of land, when released by our Indian tribe's, were 
sold at low rates to individual speculators and mo- 
nopolists, or to railway corporations, instead of being 
conveyed, as before, to the United States, and thus 
subjected to general disposition, as other public 
land. These evils are now remedied, but for nearly 
ten years they were unchecked. The title to In- 
dian lands was secured through treaties concoct6d 
by a ring of speculators and monopolists outside of 
the Senate, and frequently ratified by that body 
near the close of a long- session, when less than half 



2l8 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

a dozen members were in their seats, and the entire 
business was supervised by a single Western sen- 
ator acting as the agent of his employers and the 
sharer in their plunder. These fatal mistakes in our 
legislation have made the Homestead law a half- 
way measure, instead of that complete reform in 
our land policy which was demanded, and they 
furnish a remarkable commentary upon the boasted 
friendship of the Republican party for the landless 
poor. 

The conservative war-policy of the Administra- 
tion continued to assert itself. The action of the 
President in promptly revoking the order of Gen- 
eral Hunter, of the ninth of May, declaring free 
the slaves of the States of Georgia, Florida, and 
South Carolina, aggravated the growing impa- 
tience of the people. On the ninth day of June 
I submitted a resolution instructing the judiciary 
committee to report a bill repealing the Fugitive 
Slave Act, which was laid on the table by a vote 
of sixty-six to fifty-one, sixteen Republicans vot- 
ing in the affirmative. On the second of July I 
called to see the President, and had a familiar 
talk about the war. He looked thin and haggard, 
but seemed cheerful. Although our forces were 
then engaged in a terrific conflict with the enemy 
near Richmond, and everybody was anxious as to 
the result, he was quite as placid as usual, and 
could not resist his " ruling passion " for anec- 
dotes. If I had judged him by appearances I 



NEW ADMINIS7 RATION AND THE WAR. 219 

should have pronounced him incapable of any 
deep earnestness of feeling ; but his manner was 
so kindly, and so free from the ordinary crook- 
edness of the politician and the vanity and self- 
importance of official position, that nothing but 
good-will was inspired by his presence. He was 
still holding fast his faith in General McClellan, 
and this was steadily widening the breach between 
him and Congress, and periling the success of the 
war. The general gloom in Washington increased 
till the adjournment, but Mr. Sumner still had 
faith in the President, and prophesied good things 
as to his final action. 

The Confiscation Act of this session, which was 
approved by the President on the seventeenth day 
of July, providing that slaves of rebels coming into 
our lines should be made free, and that the 
property of their owners, both real and personal, 
should be confiscated, would have given great and 
wide-spread satisfaction ; but the President refused 
to sign the bill without a modification first made 
exempting the fee of rebel land-owners from its 
operation, thus powerfully aiding them in their 
deadly struggle against us. This action was inex- 
pressibly provoking; but Congress was obliged 
to make the modification required, as the only 
means of securing the important advantages of 
other features of the measure. This anti-republi- 
can discrimination between real and personal prop- 
erty when the nation was struggling for its life 



220 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

against a rebellious aristocracy founded on the 
monopoly of land and the ownership of negroes, 
roused a popular opposition which thus far was 
altogether unprecedented. The feeling in Con- 
gress, however, was far more intense than through- 
out the country. No one at a distance could have 
formed any adequate conception of the hostility of 
Republican members toward Mr. Lincoln at the 
final adjournment, while it was the belief of many 
that our last session of Congress had been held in 
Washington. Mr. Wade said the country was 
going to hell, and that the scenes witnessed in the 
French Revolution were nothing in comparison 
with what we should see here. 

Just before leaving Washington I called on the 
President again, and told him I was going to take 
the stump, and to tell the people that he would co- 
operate with Congress in vigorously carrying out 
the measures we had inaugurated for the purpose 
of crushing the rebellion, and that now the quickest 
and hardest blows were to be dealt. He told me 
I was authorized to say so, but said that more 
than half the popular clamor against the manage- 
ment of the war was unwarranted ; and when I re- 
ferred to the movements of General McClellan he 
made no committal in any way. 

On the nineteenth of August Horace Greeley 
wrote his famous anti-slavery letter to the Presi- 
dent, entitled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions." It 
was one of the most powerful appeals ever made in 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 221 

behalf of justice and the rights of man. In his 
reply Mr. Lincoln said: "If I could save the Union 
without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could 
save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and 
if I could save it by freeing some and leaving oth- 
ers alone, I would do that." These words served 
as fresh fuel to the fires of popular discontent, and 
they were responded to by Mr. Greeley with ad- 
mirable vigor and earnestness. The anti-slavery 
critics of the President insisted that in thus dealing 
with slavery as a matter of total indifference he 
likened himself to Douglas, who had declared 
that he didn't care whether slavery was voted up or 
voted down in the Territories. They argued that 
as slavery was the cause of the war and the 
obstacle to peace, it was the duty of the Gov- 
ernment to lay hold of the conscience of the 
quarrel, and strike at slavery as the grand rebel. 
Not to do so, they contended, now that the oppor- 
tunity was offered, was to make the contest a mere 
struggle for power, and thus to degrade it to the 
level of the wars of the Old World, which bring 
with them nothing for freedom or the race. They 
insisted that the failure of the Government to give 
freedom to our millions in bondage would be a 
crime only to be measured by that of putting them 
in chains if they were free. They reminded the Presi- 
dent of his declaration that a house divided against 
itself can not stand, and that the Republic can 
not permanently exist half slave and half free; and 



222 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

they urged that this baptism of fire and blood would 
be impious if the cause which produced it should 
be spared to canker the heart of the nation anew, 
and repeat its diabolical deeds. A Union with 
slavery spared and reinstated would not be worth 
the cost of saving it. To argue that we were 
fighting for a political abstraction called the Union, 
and not for the destruction of slavery, was to 
affront common sense, since nothing but slavery 
had brought the Union into peril, and nothing could 
make sure the fruits of the war but the removal of 
its cause. It was to delude ourselves with mere 
phrases, and conduct the war on false pretenses. 
It was to rival the folly of the rebels, who always 
asseverated that they were not fighting for slavery, 
but only for the right of local self government," 
when the whole world knew the contrary. These 
ideas, variously presented and illustrated, found 
manifold expression in innumerable Congressional 
speeches and in the newspapers of the Northern 
States, and a month later brought forth the Presi- 
dent's proclamation of the twenty-second of Sep- 
tember, giving the insurgents notice that on the 
first day of January following he would issue his 
proclamation of general emancipation, if they did 
not in the meantime lay down their arms. The 
course of events and the pressure of opinion were at 
last forcing him to see that the nation was wrest- 
ling with slavery in arms ; that its destruction 
was not a debatable and distant alternative, but a 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 223 

pressing and absolute necessity; and that his 
Border State policy, through which he had so long 
tried to pet and please the power that held the 
nation by the throat, was a cruel and fatal mistake. 
This power, however, had so completely woven 
itself into the whole fabric of American society and 
institutions, and had so long fed upon the virtue of 
our public men, that the Administration was not yet 
prepared to divorce itself entirely from the madness 
that still enthralled the conservative element of the 
Republican party. 

It was during this year that a formidable effort 
was made by the old Whig element in the Republi- 
can party to disband the organization and form a 
new one, called the "Union party." They were dis- 
posed to blame the Abolitionists for the halting 
march of events, and to run away from the real 
issues of the conflict. They were believers in the 
Border State policy, and favored the colonization 
of the negroes, while deprecating " radical and ex- 
treme measures." They forgot that the Republi- 
can principle was as true in the midst of war as in 
seasons of peace, and that instead of putting it in 
abeyance when the storm came, we should cling to 
it with redoubled energy and purpose. They for- 
got that the contest of i860 was not only a strug- 
gle between slavery and freedom, but a struggle of 
life and death, inasmuch as the exclusion of slavery 
from all federal territory would not only put the 
nation's brand upon it in the States of the South, 



224 POLITICAL RECOLEECTIONS. 

and condemn it as a public enemy, but virtually 
sentence it to death. They forgot that the charge 
of "abolitionism," which was incessantly hurled at 
the Republican party,was thus by no means wanting 
in essential truth, and that when the slaveholders 
were vanquished in the election of Mr. Lincoln, 
their appeal from the ballot to the bullet was the 
logical result of their insane devotion to slaver}', 
and their conviction that nothing could save it but 
the dismemberment of the Republic. They forgot 
that the Rebellion was simply an advanced stage of 
slaveholding rapacity, and that instead of tempting us 
to cower before it and surrender our principles, it 
furnished an overwhelming argument for standing 
by them to the death. This movement was fruitful of 
great mischief throughout the loyal States, and on 
my return to Washington in the fall of this year 
I was glad to find this fact generally admitted, and 
my earnest opposition to it fully justified by the 
judgment of Republican members of Congress. 

Immediately after the battle of Fredricksburg, on 
the 13th of December, the Committee on the Con- 
duct of the War visited that place for the purpose 
of inquiring into the facts respecting that fearful 
disaster. The country was greatly shocked and ex- 
cited, and eager to know who was to blame. We 
examined Burnside, Hooker, Sumner, and Wood- 
bury ; but prior to this, in a personal interview with 
General Burnside, he frankly told me that he was 
responsible for the attack. He seemed to be loaded 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 225 



down with a mountain of trouble and anxiety, and 
I could see that he felt just as a patriotic man nat- 
urally would, after sacrificing^ thousands of men by 
a mistaken movement. He said he had no military 
ambition, and frankly confessed his incapacity to 
command a large army, as he had done to the Presi- 
dent and Secretary of War, when they urged him 
to assume this great responsibility; and that he was 
very sorry he had ever consented to accept it. 
His conversation disarmed all criticism, while his 
evident honesty decidedly pleased me. It was a 
sad thought, while standing on the banks of the 
Rappahannock, that here were more than a hundred 
thousand men on either side of a narrow river, 
brethren and kindred, and naturally owing each 
other nothing but good will, who were driven by 
negro slavery into the wholesale slaughter of each 
other. But General Burnside told me our men did 
not feel toward the rebels as they felt toward us, 
and he assured me that this was the grand obstacle 
to our success. Our soldiers, he said, were not 
sufficiently fired by resentment, and he exhorted 
me, if I could, to breathe into our people at home 
the same spirit toward our enemies which inspired 
them toward us. As I approached one of the prin- 
cipal hospitals here, I was startled by a pile of arms 
and legs of wounded soldiers, and on entering the 
building I found scores of men in the last stages of 
life, stretched on the floor with nothing under them 
but a thin covering of hay, and nothing over them 
15 



226 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

but a coarse blanket or quilt, and without a spark 
of fire to warm them, though the weather was ex- 
tremely cold and they were literally freezing to 
death. Some of them were too far gone to speak, 
and looked at me so pleadingly that I can never 
forget the impression it made. Arrangements were 
made for their comfort as soon as it was possible. 

On New Year's day I joined the immense throng 
of callers at the White House, but did not enjoy 
the delay of the President in issuing his Proclama- 
tion of Emancipation, It came late in the day, and 
brought relief to multitudes of anxious people. 
Perhaps no subject has ever been more widely 
misunderstood than the legal effect of this famous 
document, and the circumstances under which it 
was issued. Mr. Lincoln was himself opposed to 
the measure, and when he very reluctantly issued his 
preliminary proclamation in September, he wished 
it distinctly understood that the deportation of 
the slaves was, in his mind, inseparably connected 
with the policy. Like Mr. Clay and other promi- 
nent leaders of the old Whig party, he believed in 
colonization, and that the separation of the two 
races was necessary to the welfare of both. He 
was at that time pressing upon the attention of 
Congress a scheme of colonization in Chiriqui in 
Central America, which Senator Pomeroy espoused 
with great zeal, and in which he had the favor of a 
majority of the Cabinet, including Secretary Smith, 
who warmly endorsed the project. Subsequent 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 22/ 

developments, however, proved that it was simply 
an organization for land-steaHng and plunder, and 
it was abandoned ; but it is by no means certain that 
if the President had foreseen this fact, his prelim- 
inary notice to the rebels would have been given. 
There are strong reasons for saying that he doubt- 
ed his right to emancipate under the war power, 
and that he meant what he said when he compared 
an executive order to that effect to the "Pope's 
Bull against the Comet." 

But he saw no way of escape. The demand foi 
such an edict was wide-spread and rapidly extend- 
ing in the Republican party. The pov/er to issue 
it was taken for granted. All doubts on the sub- 
ject were consumed in the burning desire of the 
people, or forgotten in the travail of war. The 
anti-slavery element was becoming more and more 
impatient and impetuous. Opposition to that 
element now involved more serious consequences 
than offending the Border States. Mr. Lincoln 
feared that enlistments would cease, and that Con- 
gress would even refuse the necessary supplies to 
carry on the war, if he declined any longer to place 
it on a clearly defined anti-slavery basis. It was in 
yielding to this pressure that he finally became the 
liberator of the slaves through the triumph of our 
arms which it ensured. 

The authority to emancipate under the war 
power is well settled, but it could only be asserted 
over territory occupied by our armies. Each Com- 
manding General, as fast as our flag advanced, 



228 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

could have offered freedom to the slaves, as could 
the President himself This was the view of Secre- 
tary Chase. A paper proclamation of freedom, as 
to States in the power of the enemy, could have no 
more validity than a paper blockade of their coast. 
Mr. Lincoln's proclamation did not apply to the 
Border States, which were loyal, and in which 
slavery was of course untouched. It did not pre- 
tend to operate upon the slaves in other large dis- 
tricts, in which it would have been effective at once, 
but studiously excluded them, while it applied main- 
ly to States and parts of States within the military 
occupation of the enemy, where it was necessarily 
void. But even if the proclamation could have 
given freedom to the slaves according to its scope, 
their permanent enfranchisement would not have 
been secured, because the status of slavery, as it ex 
isted under the local laws of the States prior to the 
war, would have remained after the re-establishment 
of peace. All emancipated slaves found in those 
States, or returning to them, would have been sub- 
ject to slavery as before, for the simple reason that 
no military proclamation could operate to abolish 
their municipal laws. Nothing short of a Consti- 
tutional amendment could at once give freedom to 
our black millions and make their re-enslavement 
impossible ; and " this," as Mr. Lincoln declared 
in earnestly urging its adoption, " is a king's cure 
for all evils. It winds the whole thing up." All 
this is now attested by very high authorities on 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 



229 



International and Constitutional law; and while it 
takes nothing from the honor so universally ac- 
corded to Mr. Lincoln as the great Emancipator, it 
shows how wisely he employed a grand popular 
delusion in the salvation of his country. His proc- 
lamation had no present legal effect within terri- 
tory not under the control of our arms ; but as an 
expression of the spirit of the people and the policy 
of the Administration, it had become both a moral 
and a military necessity. 

During this month I called with the Indiana 
delegation to see the President respecting the ap- 
pointment of Judge Otto, of Indiana, as Assistant 
Secretary of the Interior. He was afterward ap- 
pointed, but Mr. Lincoln then only responded to 
our application by treating us to four anecdotes. 
Senator Lane told me that when the President 
heard a story that pleased him he took a mem- 
orandum of it and filed it away among his papers. 
This was probably true. At any rate, by som.e 
method or other, his supply seemed inexhaustible, 
and always aptly available. Early in February 
General Burnside came before the War Commit- 
tee, and gave the most startling testimony as to 
the demoralization of the Army of the Potomac, 
the bickerings and jealousies of the commanding 
generals, and the vexations of the President in 
dealing with the situation. On the i8th of March 
I called on Mr. Lincoln respecting the appoint- 
ments I had recommended under the conscription 
law, and took occasion to refer to the failure of 



230 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

General Fremont to obtain a command. He said 
he did not know where to place him, and that it 
reminded him of the old man who advised his son 
to take a wife, to which the young man responded, 
" Whose wife shall I take ?" The President pro- 
ceeded to point out the practical difficulties in the 
way by referring to a number of important com- 
mands which might suit Fremont, but which 
could only be reached by removals he did not wish 
to make. I remarked that I was very sorry if 
this was true, and that it was unfortunate for our 
cause, as I believed his restoration to duty would 
stir the country as no other appointment could. 
He said, "it would stir the country on one side, 
and stir it the other way on the other. It would 
please Fremont's friends, and displease the con- 
servatives ; and that is all I can see in the sthrmg 
argument." '* My proclamation," he added, " was 
to stir the country ; but it has done about as much 
harm as good." These observations were charac- 
teristic, and showed how reluctant he was to turn 
away from the conservative counsels he had so 
long heeded. 

On the 3d day of April the final report of the 
Committee on the Conduct of the War was com- 
pleted, and the portion of it relating to the Army 
of the Potomac was in the hands of the Associated 
Press, and awaited by the public with a curiosity 
which it is not easy now to realize. The forma- 
tion of the committee, as already stated, grew out 



NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. 23 I 

of the popular demand for a more vigorous war 
policy, and its action was thus exposed to the 
danger of hasty conclusions ; but the press and 
public opinion of the loyal States, with remarkable 
unanimity, credited it with great usefulness to the 
country, through its labors to rescue the control 
of the war from incompetent and unworthy hands. 
I returned home by way of Philadelphia and 
New York, and had a delightful visit in the former 
place with James and Lucretia Mott, whom I had 
not seen since 1850. In New York I attended the 
great ** Sumter meeting " of the 13th, and spoke 
at one of the stands with General Fremont and 
Roscoe Conkling. While in the city I met Mr. 
Bryant, Phebe Carey, Mr. Beecher and other 
notables, and on my way home tarried two days 
with Gerrit Smith, at his hospitable home in Peter-> 
boro. According to his custom he invited a num- 
ber of his neighbors and friends to breakfast, and 
by special invitation I addressed the people 
in the evening, at the '' free church " of the 
town, on topics connected with the war. I could 
see that Mr. Smith did not approve the sever- 
ity of my language, and that this was a source 
of amusement to some of his neighbors, but 
the course of events afterward radically changed 
his views, and he admitted that in his public 
addresses he was greatly aided by the impre- 
catory psalms. I had several delightful rambles 
with him, our conversation turning chiefly upon 
reformatory and theological topics, and I found 



232 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

myself more than ever in love with this venerable 
philanthropist whom I had only met once before, 
on his visit to Washington the previous year. 

On the night of the 8th of July the fire-bells of 
the town of Centreville, in which I resided, roused 
the people, who rushed into the streets to learn that 
General John Morgan, with six thousand cavalry 
and four pieces of artillery, had crossed the Ohio, 
and was moving upon the town of Corydon. The 
Governor had issued a call for minute men for the 
defense of the State, and within forty-eight hours 
sixty five thousand men tendered their services. 
Messengers were at once dispatched to all parts of 
Wayne County conveying the news of the invasion, 
and the next morning the people came pouring in 
from all directions, while the greatest excitement 
prevailed. The town had eighty muskets, belong- 
ing to its Home Guard, and I took one of them, 
which I afterward exchanged for a good French 
rifle ; and having put on the military equipments, 
and supplied myself with a blanket and canteen, I 
was ready for marching orders. The volunteers 
who rallied at Centreville were shipped to Indian- 
apolis, and were about seven hours on the way. I 
was a member of Company C, and the regiment 
to which I belonged was the One Hundred and 
Sixth, and was commanded by Colonel Isaac P. 
Gray. Of the force which responded to the call of 
the Governor, thirteen regiments and one battalion 
were organized specially for the emergency, and 



NEW ADMINISTRAIIOX AND THE WAR. 233 

sent into the field in different directions, except the 
One Hundred and Tenth and the One Hundred and 
Eleventh, which remained at Indianapolis. The 
One Hundred and Sixth was shipped by rail to 
Cincinnati, and but for a detention of several hours 
at Indianapolis, caused by the drunkenness of an 
officer high in command, it might possibly have 
encountered Morgan near Hamilton, the next 
morning, on the way South. Our reception in Cin- 
cinnati was not very flattering. The people there 
seemed to feel that Ohio was able to take care of 
herself; and, in fact, nothing could have been more 
unreasonable than sending a body of infantry one 
hundred miles in pursuit of a cavalry force in that 
vicinity, where an ample body of cavalry was in 
readiness, and the river well guarded by gun-boats. 
We were re-shipped to Indianapolis by rail, 
where we were mustered out of service and returned 
to our homes after a campaign of eight days. This 
was the sum of my military experience, but it af- 
forded me some glimpses of the life of a soldier, 
and supplied me with some startling facts respect- 
ing- the curse of intemperance in our armies. 



CHAPTER XL 

INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. 

Campaigning in Ohio — Attempted repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
Law — Organized movement in favor of Chase for the Presi- 
dency — Confiscation of rebel lands — Fort Pillow and the 
treatment of Union soldiers at Richmond — Mr. Lincoln's 
letter to Hodges — Southern Homestead Bill and controversy 
with Mr. Mallory — Nomination of Andrew Johnson — -Enforce- 
ment of party discipline — Mr. Lincoln's change of opinion 
as to confiscation of rebel lands — Opposition to him in 
Congress — General Fremont and Montgomery Blair — Visit 
to City Point — Adoption of the XIH Constitutional Amend- 
ment — Trip to Richmond and incidents — Assassination of the 
President — Inauguration of Johnson and announcement of his 
policy — Feeling toward Mr. Lincoln — Capitulation with 
Gen. Johnson. 

In the latter part of July of this year I addressed 
several meetings in Ohio, in company with Gov. 
Brough, beginning at Toledo. His speeches were 
too conservative for the times, as he soon discov- 
ered by their effect upon the people; but I found 
him singularly genial and companionable, and full 
of reminiscences of his early intimacy with Jack- 
son, Van Buren and Silas Wright. Early in Sep- 
tember I returned to Ohio to join Hon. John A. 
Bingham in canvassing Mr. Ashley's district under 
the employment of the State Republican Commit- 
(234) 



INCIDENTS AND END OE THE WAR. 235 

tee. Mr. Valjandingham, then temporarily colo- 
nized in Canada, was the Democratic candidate for 
Governor, and the canvass was "red-hot." At no 
time during the war did the spirit of war more 
completely sway the loyal masses. It was no 
time to mince the truth, or " nullify damnation 
with a phrase," and I fully entered into the spirit 
of General Burnside's advice already referred to, to 
breathe into the hearts of the people a feeling of 
animosity against the rebels akin to that which in- 
spired their warfare against us. I remember that 
at one of the mass- meetings I attended, where Col. 
Gibson was one of the speakers, a Cincinnati 
reporter who had prepared himself for his work 
dropped his pencil soon after the oratorical fire- 
works began, and listened with open mouth and 
the most rapt attention till the close of the speech ; 
and he afterward wrote to his employer an account 
of the meeting, in which he said that reporting 
was simply impossible, and he could only say the 
speaking was "beautifully terrible." As a stump- 
speaker Col. Gibson was then without a rival in 
the West. His oratory was an irresistible fascina- 
tion, and no audience could ever grow tired of him. 
The speeches of Mr. Bingham were always admi- 
rable. His rhetoric was singularly charming. He 
was an artist in his work, but seldom repeated him- 
self, while gathering fresh inspiration, and following 
some new line of thought at every meeting. After 
our work was done in the Toledo district I accom- 



236 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

panied Mr. Ashley to Jefferson, where he and 
others were to address a mass-meeting, which we 
found assembled in front of the court house. The 
day was rainy and dismal, and the meeting had al- 
ready been in session for hours ; but after addi- 
tional speeches by Ashley and Hutchins I was so 
loudly called for a little while before sunset, that I 
responded for about three-quarters of an hour, 
when I proposed to conclude, the people having 
been detained already over four hours while 
standing in a cold drizzling rain ; but the cry of 
*' go on " was very emphatic, and seemed to be 
unanimous. '* Go ahead," said a farmer, " we'll 
hear you ; it's past milking time anyhow ! " It 
seemed to me I had never met such listeners. I 
was afterward informed that the test of effective 
speaking on the Reserve is the ability to hold an 
audience from their milking when the time for it 
comes, and I thought I passed this test splendidly. 
After my return from Ohio I made a brief canvass 
in Iowa, along with Senator Harlan and Governor 
Stone, and spent the remainder of the fall on the 
stump in my own State. 

In the 38th Congress, Speaker Colfax made me 
Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, which 
gratified me much. It opened a coveted field of 
labor on which I entered with zeal. On the 14th 
of December I introduced a bill for the repeal of 
'the Fugitive Slave Law, and in order to test the 
sense of the House on the question, I offered a reso- 



INCIDEXTS AXD END OF THE WAR. 237 

lution instructing the Judiciary Committee to re- 
port such a bill. Greatly to my astonishment it 
was laid on the table by a vote of yeas eighty-two, 
nays seventy-four. Many Republicans declined to 
vote, and we were evidently still under the linger- 
ing spell of slavery. Early in January an organized 
movement was set on foot in the interest of Mr. 
Chase for the Presidency, and I was made a mem- 
ber of a Central Committee which was appointed 
for the purpose of aiding the enterprise. I was a 
decided friend of Mr. Chase, and as decidedly dis- 
pleased with the hesitating military policy of the 
Administration ; but on reflection I determined to 
withdraw from the committee and let the presiden- 
tial matter drift. I had no time to devote to the 
business, and I found the committee inharmonious, 
and composed, in part, of men utterly unfit and un- 
worthy to lead in such a movement. It was fear- 
fully mismanaged. A confidential document known 
as the " Pomeroy circular," assailing Mr. Lincoln 
and urging the claims of Mr. Chase, was sent to 
numerous parties, and of course fell into the hands 
of Mr. Lincoln's friends. They became greatly ex- 
cited, and by vigorous counter measures created a 
strong reaction. A serious estrangement between 
the President and his Secretary was the result, 
which lasted for several months. The Chase move- 
ment collapsed, and when the Republican members 
of the Ohio Legislature indorsed the re-nomination 
of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Chase withdrew from the con- 



238 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

test. The opposition to Mr. Lincoln, however, con- 
tinued, and was secretly cherished by many of the 
ablest and most patriotic men in the party. The 
extent of their opposition in Congress can never be 
known, and it was greatly aggravated by successive 
military failures; but it lacked both courage and 
leadership, and culminated in the nomination of 
General Fremont in the latter part of May. 

In this Congress a new joint select committee 
on the "conduct of the war" was organized, 
armfed with new powers, and authorized to sit in 
vacation ; and in common with most of the mem- 
bers of the former committee I was re-appointed. 
During the latter part of January I reported from 
the Committee on Public Lands a proposition to 
extend the Homestead Law of 1862 to the forfeited 
and confiscated lands of Rebels. It was a very 
radical proposition, proposing to deal with these 
lands as public lands, and parcel them out into 
small homesteads among the poor of the South, 
black and white. The subject was a large one, in- 
volving many important questions, and I devoted 
much time and thought to the preparation of a 
speech in support of the measure. In the month 
of April a portion of the Committee on the Conduct 
of the War visited Fort Pillow, for the purpose of 
taking testimony respecting the rebel atrocities at 
that place ; and this testimony and that taken at 
Annapolis, early in May, respecting the treatment 
of our soldiers in the prisons at Richmond was 



INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. 239 

published, as a special instalment of our proceed- 
ings, for popular use, accompanied by photographs 
of a number of the prisoners in their wasted and 
disfigured condition. The report produced a 
powerful effect on the public mind, and caused 
unspeakable trouble and vexation to the enemy. 
I assisted in the examination of our prisoners at 
Annapolis, and never before had been so touched 
by any spectacle of human suffering. They were 
in the last stages of life, and could only answer 
our questions in a whisper. They were living 
skeletons, and it seemed utterly incredible that 
life could be supported in such wasted and attenu- 
ated shadows of themselves. The}^ looked at us, 
in attempting to tell their story, with an expression 
of beseeching tenderness and submission which no 
words could describe. Not one of them expressed 
any regret that he had entered into the service of 
the country, and each declared that he would do 
so again, if his life should be spared and the op- 
portunity should be offered. In examining one of 
these men I was perfectly unmanned by my tears ; 
and on retiring from the tent to give them vent I 
encountered Senator Wade, who had fled from the 
work, and was sobbing like a child. It was an al- 
together unprecedented experience, and the im- 
pression it produced followed me night and day for 
weeks. 

The conservative policy of the Administration 
found a new and careful expression in Mr. Lin- 



240 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

coin's letter to A. G. Hodges, of the 4th of April. 
It showed great progress as compared with previ- 
ous utterances, but his declaration that " I claim 
not to have controlled events, but confess plainly 
that events have controlled me," was displeasing 
to the more anti-slavery Republicans. They insist- 
ed that the Administration had no right to become 
the foot-ball of events. It had no right, they said, at 
such a time, to make itself a negative expression 
or an unknown quantity in the Algebra which was 
to work out the grand problem. It had no right, 
they insisted, to take shelter beneath a debauched 
and sickly public sentiment, and plead it in bar of 
the great duty imposed upon it by the crisis. It 
had no right, certainly, to lag behind that senti- 
ment, to magnify its extent and potency, and thus 
to become its virtual ally, instead of endeavoring 
to control it, and to indoctrinate the country with 
ideas suited to the emergency. It was the duty of 
the President, like John Bright and the English 
Liberals, to lead, not follow public opinion. These 
criticisms found every variety of utterance through 
Congressional speeches and the press, and met 
with a cordial response from the people; and they 
undoubtedly played their part in preparing the 
country and the Administration for the more vigor- 
ous policy which was to follow. 

On the 1 2th of May the House passed my South- 
ern Homestead Bill by the strictly party vote of 
seventy-five to sixty-four. In my closing speech on 



INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. 24 1 

the subject I was frequently interrupted by Wood 
of New York, and Mallory of Kentucky, and the 
debate ran into very sharp personalities; but the op- 
position of these members only tended to strengthen 
the measure. On the 19th I was drawn into an ex- 
ceedingly angry altercation with Mr. Mallory, who 
charged me with forging some very personal re- 
marks about himself, and interpolating them into 
the " Congressional Globe " as a part^of my speech of 
the 1 2th. He was exceedingly insolent and over- 
bearing in his manner, growing more and more so 
as he proceeded, and strikingly recalling the old 
days of slavery. He summoned a number of his 
friends as witnesses, who testified that they did not 
hear me use the language in question, and several 
of them, like Kernan of New York, declared that 
they had occupied positions very near me, had given 
particular attention to my words, and would cer- 
tainly have remembered them if they had been 
uttered. I kept cool, but asserted very positively 
that I did use the exact words reported, and in 
proof of my statement I appealed to a number of 
my friends, who sustained me by their distinct and 
positive recollection. Here was a conflict of testi- 
mony in which every witness recollected the facts 
according to his politics; but pending the proceed- 
ings I was fortunate enough to find the notes of the 
"Globe" reporter, which perfectly vindicated me 
from Mr. Mallory's charges, and suddenly put his 
bluster and billingsgate to flight. He uncondition- 
16 



242 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

ally retracted his charges, while his swift witnesses 
were sufficiently rebuked and humiliated by this un- 
expected catastrophe. I was heartily complimented 
on my triumph, and my dialogue with Mr. Mallory 
was put in pamphlet as a campaign document by 
his opponents and liberally scattered over his dis- 
trict, where it did much service in defeating his 
re-election to the House. 

The passage of the Southern Homestead Bill, 
however, could only prove a very partial measure 
without an enactment reaching the fee of rebel land 
owners, and I confidently anticipated the endorse- 
ment of such a measure by the Republican Na- 
tional Convention, which was to meet in Baltimore, 
on the seventh of June. I was much gratified 
when the National Union League approved it, in its 
Convention in that city the day before ; and a reso- 
lution embodying it was also reported favorably 
by the sub-committee on resolutions of the Na- 
tional Republican- Convention the next day. But 
the General Committee, on the motion of McKee 
Dunn of Indiana, always an incorrigible conserva- 
tive, struck it out, much to the disappointment of 
the Republican masses. To me it was particularly 
vexatious, as the measure was a pet one of mine, 
having labored for it with much zeal, and in the 
confidence that the National Convention would ap- 
prove it. Mr. Dunn was a Kentuckian of the 
Border State School, and although a friend of mine, 
and an upright and very gentlemanly man, he had 



INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. 243 

a genius for being on the wrong side of vital ques- 
tions during the war. Speaker Colfax used to say, 
laughingly, that in determining his own course he 
first made it a point to find out where McKee Dunn 
stood ; and then, having ascertained Julian's posi- 
tion, he always took a middle ground, feeling per- 
fectly sure he was right. 

But to me the nomination of Andrew Johnson 
for Vice President was a still greater disappoint- 
ment. I knew he did not believe in the principles 
embodied in the platform. I had become inti- 
mately acquainted with him while we were fellow- 
members of the Committee on the Conduct of the 
War, and he always scouted the idea that slavery 
was the cause of our trouble, or that emancipation 
could ever be tolerated without immediate coloni- 
zation. In my early acquaintance with him I had 
formed a different opinion ; but he was, at heart, as 
decided a hater of the negro and of everything 
savoring of abolitionism, as the rebels from whom he 
had separated. His nomination, however, like that 
of Mr. Lincoln, seemed to have been preordained 
by the people, while the intelligent, sober men, in 
Congress and out of Congress, who lamented the 
fact, were not- prepared to oppose the popular will. 
Mr. Lincoln's nomination was nearly unanimous, 
only the State of Missouri opposing him ; but of the 
more earnest and thorough-going Republicans in 
both Houses of Congress, probably not one in ten 
really favored it. It was not only very distasteful 



244 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

to a large majority of Congress but to many of the 
most prominent men of the party throughout the 
country. During the month of June the feehng 
against Mr. Lincoln became more and more bitter 
and intense, but its expression never found its way 
to the people. 

Notwithstanding the divisions which existed in 
the Republican ranks, party discipline was vigor- 
ous and absolute. "Civil Service Reform" was in 
the distant future, and the attempt to inaugurate it 
would have been counted next to treasonable. 
Loyalty to Republicanism was not only accepted 
as the best evidence of loyalty to the country, but 
of fitness for civil position. After my nomination 
for re-election this year, Mr. Holloway, who was 
still holding the position of Commissioner of Pat- 
ents, and one of the editors of a Republican news- 
paper in my district, refused to recognize me as 
the party candidate, and kept the name of my de- 
feated competitor standing in his paper. It threat-, 
ened discord and mischief, and I went to the 
President with these facts, and on the strength of 
them demanded his removal from office. He re- 
plied, " If I remove Mr. Holloway I shall hs.ve a 
quarrel with Senator Lane on my hands." I re- 
plied that Senator Lane would certainly not quarrel 
with him for turning a man out of office who was 
fighting the Republican party and the friends of 
the Administration. " Your nomination," said he, 
" is as binding on Republicans as mine, and you 



INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. 245 

can rest assured that Mr. Holloway shall support 
you, openly and unconditionally, or lose his head." 
This was entirely satisfactory, but after waiting a 
week or two for the announcement of my name I re- 
turned to Mr. Lincoln with the information that Mr. 
Holloway was still keeping up his fight, and that I 
had come to ask of him decisive measures. I saw in 
an instant that the President now meant business. 
He dispatched a messenger at once, asking Mr. 
Holloway to report to him forthwith, in person, 
and in a few days my name was announced in his 
paper as the Republican candidate, and that of my 
competitor withdrawn. 

Having understood that Mr. Lincoln had 
changed his opinion respecting the power of Con- 
gress to confiscate the landed estates of rebels, I 
called to see him on the subject on the 2d of July, 
and asked him if I might say to the people that 
what I had learned on this subject was true, assur- 
ing him that I could make a far better fight for our 
cause if he would permit me to do so. He replied 
that when he prepared his veto of our law on the 
subject two years before, he had not examined the 
matter thoroughly, but that on further reflection, 
and on reading Solicitor Whiting's law argument, 
he had changed his opinion, and thought he would 
now sign a bill striking at the fee, if we would 
send it to him. I was much gratified by this state- 
ment, which was of service to the cause in the 
canvass ; but, unfortunately, constitutional scruples 



246 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

respecting such legislation gained ground, and al- 
though both Houses of Congress at different times 
endorsed the principle, it never became a law, ow- 
ing to unavoidable differences between the Presi- 
dent and Congress on the question of reconstruc- 
tion. The action of the President in dealing with 
rebel land owners was of the most serious charac- 
ter. It paralyzed one of the most potent means 
of putting down the Rebellion, prolonging the con- 
flict and aggravating its cost, and at the same time 
left the owners of large estates in full possession 
of their lands at the end of the struggle, who 
naturally excluded from the ownership of the soil 
the freedmen and poor whites who had been friendly 
to the Union ; while the confiscation of life estates 
as a war measure was of no practical advantage to 
the Government or disadvantage to the enemy. 

The refusal of the President to sign the Recon- 
struction Act which passed near the close of 
the session, and his proclamation and message 
giving his reasons therefor, still further exasperated 
a formidable body of earnest and impatient Repub- 
licans. A scathing criticism of the President's 
position by Henry Winter Davis, which was signed 
by himself and Senator Wade, fitly echoed their 
feelings. Mr. Davis was a man of genius. Among 
the famous men in the Thirty-eighth Congress he 
had no superior as a writer, debater and orator- 
He was a brilliant man, whose devotion to his 
country in this crisis was a passion, while his hos- 



INCIDEXrS AND END OF THE WAR. 247 

tility to the President's policy was as sincere as it 
was intense ; but the passage of the somewhat in- 
congruous bill vetoed by the President, would prob- 
ably have proved a stumbling-block in the way of 
the more radical measures which afterward pre- 
vailed. This could not then be foreseen, and as 
the measure was an advanced one, the feeling 
against Mr. Lincoln waxed stronger and stronger 
among his opposers. They had so completely lost 
their faith in him that when Congress adjourned 
they seriously feared his veto of the bill just 
enacted, repealing the Fugitive Slave law ; while 
the independent movement in favor of General Fre- 
mont threatened a serious division in the Repub- 
lican ranks, and the triumph of General McClellan. 
"These," as Mr. Lincoln said on another occa- 
sion, " were dark and dismal days," and they were 
made still more so by the course of military events. 
The capture of Richmond, which General Grant 
had promised, had not been accomplished, although 
he had been furnished with all the troops he wanted. 
Our Grand Army of the Potomac made advances 
in that direction, but with great slaughter and 
no actual results; while the Administration was 
blamed for his failures. General Grant finally 
reached the position occupied by McClellan in 
1862, but with terrific losses, and Richmond still 
in possession of the rebels. His delay and inaction 
at this point created great popular discontent in the 
North ; but while Lincoln supplied him with ample 



248 rOLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

reinforcements, and he now had an army twice as 
large as that of General Lee, which was costing 
the nation over a million dollars per day, he con- 
tinued idle during the summer. It was evident 
that nothing could save us but military success ; and 
most fortunately for the Republican cause it came 
in due season, rallied and reunited its supporters, 
and thus secured their triumph at the polls. 

Near the close of the canvass, while on a visit to 
Washington, I learned how it happened that Mont- 
gomery Blair had finally been got out of the Cabi- 
net, and General Fremont induced to leave the 
track as the candidate of the Cleveland Convention. 
The radical pressure upon Mr. Lincoln for the re- 
moval of Blair was very formidable, and the emer- 
gency seemed so critical that it finally resulted in 
a compromise, by which Fremont agreed to retire 
from the race, if Blair should be required to leave 
the Cabinet. This was carried out, and thus, at last, 
the President was obliged to make terms with the 
*' Pathfinder," who achieved a long-coveted victory 
over an old foe. The election of Mr. Lincoln was 
followed by a remarkable measure of party union 
and harmony, and the tone of his message in De- 
cember was encouraging. The appointment and 
confirmation of Mr. Chase as Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court met the most cordial approval of 
Republicans everywhere. As a healing measure, 
following his retirement from the treasury for valid 
reasons, it was most timely. 



INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. 249 



During the month of December, the Committee 
on the Conduct of the War visited City Point, for 
the purpose of taking testimony respecting the ex- 
plosion of the mine at Petersburg. General Grant 
spent several hours with the Committee, speaking 
very freely and familiarly of the faults and virtues 
of our various commanders, and impressing every 
one by his strong common-sense. While at din- 
ner with us on our steamer, he drank freely, and its 
effect became quite manifest. It was a painful sur- 
prise to the Committee, and was spoken of with 
bated breath ; for he was the Lieutenant- General 
of all our forces, and the great movements which 
finally strangled the Rebellion were then in prog- 
ress, and, for aught we knew, might possibly be 
deflected from their purpose by his condition. 

In January, 1865, the Committee on the Conduct 
of the War investigated the famous Fort Fisher 
expedition, in which three hundred tons of pow- 
der were to be exploded in the vicinity of the Fort 
as a means of demolishing it, or paralyzing the 
enemy. The testimony of General Butler in ex- 
planation and defense of the enterprise was inter- 
esting and spicy, and he was subsequently contra- 
dicted by General Grant on material points. On 
the last day of this month one of the grandest 
events of the century was witnessed in the House 
of Representatives in the final passage of the Con- 
stitutional Amendment forever prohibiting slavery. 
Numerous propositions on the subject had been 



250 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

submitted, but the honor of drafting the one 
adopted belongs to Lyman Trumbull, who had in- 
troduced it early in the first session of this Con- 
gress. It passed the Senate on the 8th of April, 
1864, only six members voting against it, namely, 
Davis, Hendricks, McDougall, Powell, Riddle and 
Saulsbury, but failed in the House on the 15th of 
June following. It now came up on the motion 
of Mr. Ashley to reconsider this vote. Congress 
had abolished slavery in the District of Columbia, 
and prohibited it in all the Territories. It had re- 
pealed the Fugitive Slave law, and declared free all 
negro soldiers in the Union armies and their fami- 
lies ; and the President had played his grand part 
in the Proclamation of Emancipation. But the 
question now to be decided completely overshad- 
owed all others. The debate on the subject had 
been protracted and very spirited, the opposition 
being led by Pendleton, Fernando Wood, Voor- 
hies, Mallory and Eldridge, who all denied that 
the power to amend the Constitution conferred the 
right to abolish slavery, as Garret Davis and 
Saulsbury had done in the Senate. The time for 
the momentous vote had now come, and no lan- 
guage could describe the solemnity and impress- 
iveness of the spectacle pending the roll-call. The 
success of the measure had been considered very 
doubtful, and depended upon certain negotiations, 
the result of which was not fully assured, and the 
particulars of which never reached the public. 



INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. 25 I 

The anxiety and suspense during the balloting 
produced a deathly stillness, but when it became 
certainly known that the measure had prevailed 
the cheering in the densely-packed hall and galler- 
ies surpassed all precedent and beggared all de- 
scription. Members joined in the general shouting, 
which was kept up for several minutes, many em- 
bracing each other, and others completely surren- 
dering themselves to their tears of joy. It seemed 
to me I had been born into a new life, and that the 
world was overflowing with beauty and joy, while 
I was inexpressibly thankful for the privilege of 
recording my name on so glorious a page of the 
nation's histoiy, and in testimony of an event so 
long only dreamed of as possible in the distant 
future. The champions of negro emancipation 
had merely hoped to speed their grand cause a 
little by their faithful labors, and hand over to 
coming generations the glory of crowning it with 
success ; but they now saw it triumphant, and they 
had abundant and unbounded cause to rejoice. It 
has been aptly said that the greatest advantage of 
a long life is the opportunity it gives of seeing 
moral experiments worked out, of being present at 
the fructification of social causes, and of thus 
gaining a kind of wisdom which in ordinary cases 
seems reserved for a future life; but that an equiva- 
lent for this advantage is possessed by such as live 
in those critical periods of society when retribution 
is hastened, or displayed in clear connection with 



252 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the origin of events. It strengthens faith to ob- 
serve the sure operation of moral causes in ripen- 
ing into great and beneficent results. To be per- 
mitted to witness the final success of the grandest 
movement of ancient or modern times was a 
blessed opportunity. To have labored for it in 
the goodly fellowship of its confessors and martyrs 
was cause for devout thanksgiving and joy. To be 
accredited to share in the great historic act of its 
formal consummation was a priceless privilege. A 
few days after the ratification of this Amendment, 
on the motion of Mr. Sumner, Dr. Rock, a colored 
lawyer of Boston, was admitted to practice in the 
Supreme Court of the United States, which had 
pronounced the Dred Scott decision only a few 
years before ; and this was followed a few days 
later by a sermon in the hall of the House by Rev. 
Mr. Garnett, being the first ever preached in the 
Capitol by a colored man. Evidently, the negro 
was coming to the front. 

In the latter part of March I visited New York, 
where I witnessed the immense throngs of shouting 
people on Wall Street, called together by the news 
of the fall of Richmond. Broadway, robed in its 
innumerable banners, was one of the finest sights I 
had ever beheld. On the tenth of April the Com- 
mittee on the Conduct of the War left Washing- 
ton for South Carolina, for the purpose of taking 
further testimony, and intending to be present at 
the great anniversary of the thirteenth at Charles- 



INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. 253 

ton. We reached Fortress Monroe the next even- 
ing, where we learned that the " Alabama," which 
the Navy Department had furnished us, would 
be detained twenty-four hours to coal, by reason 
of which we proceeded directly to Richmond on 
the '* Baltimore." At City Point, Admiral Porter 
furnished us with a pilot, as there was some 
danger of torpedoes up the James River. Our 
steamer reached the city about bedtime, but we 
remained on board till morning, lulled into a 
sweet sleep by the music of the guitar and the 
singing of the negroes below. At eight o'clock 
in the morning our party went out sight-seeing, 
some in carriages, but most of us on horseback, 
with an orderly for each to show him the way. 
The first notable place we visited was General 
Weitzel's headquarters, just vacated by Jefferson 
Davis. The building was a spacious three-story 
residence, with a large double parlor, a ladies' par- 
lor, and a small secluded library attached, in which 
all sorts of treason were said to have been hatched. 
We next visited the capitol, an ancient-looking 
edifice, which would bear no comparison with our 
modern State Capitols in size or style of architect- 
ure. The library made a respectable appearance, 
but I think it contained few modern publications, 
especially of our own authors. I noticed, how- 
ever, a liberal supply of theological works of the 
most approved orthodoxy. The view of the city 
from the top of the building was admirable. We 



254 



POLITICAL RECOLLECTLONS. 



could see Libby Prison, Castle Thunder and Bell 
Isle, the former of which we afterward visited. 
After seeing the rebel fortifications we were glad 
to get back to our steamer. Before starting the 
next morning we saw the " Richmond Whig," con- 
taining an order signed by General Weitzel, invit- 
ing Hunter, McMullen and other noted rebel 
leaders, including members of the rebel legislature, 
to meet in Richmond on the twenty- fifth to confer 
with our authorities on the restoration of peace, 
transportation and safe conduct being ordered for 
the purpose. We were all thunderstruck, and 
fully sympathized with the hot indignation and 
wrathful words of the chairman of our committee. 
We soon afterward learned that the order had been 
directed by the President, and while we were 
thoroughly disgusted by this display of misguided 
magnanimity we saw rebel officers strutting around 
the streets in full uniform, looking as independent 
as if they had been the masters of the city. We 
left on the afternoon of the twelfth, and were inter- 
ested in seeing Drury's Landing, Dutch-Gap 
Canal, Malvern Hills and other points of historic 
interest. Before reaching Fortress Monroe the 
next day. Senators Wade and Chandler changed 
their minds respecting our journey to Charleston, 
which was abandoned, and after spending a few 
hours very pleasantly at that place and Point 
Lookout, we reached Washington on the evening 
of the fourteenth. 



INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. 255 

Soon after retiring I was roused from a deep sleep 
by loud raps at my door. W. L. Woods, clerk of 
my committee, entered in the greatest excitement, 
and told me that Lincoln had just been assassinated, 
and Seward and son probably, and that rebel assas- 
sins were about to take the town. Supposing all 
this to be true I grew suddenly cold, heart-sick and 
almost helpless. It was a repetition of my ex- 
perience when the exaggerated stories about the 
Bull Run disaster first reached me in the summer 
ofi86i. I soon rallied, however, and joined the 
throng on the street. The city was at once in a tem- 
pest of excitement, consternation and rage. About 
seven and a half o'clock in the morning the church 
bells tolled the President's death. The weather was 
as gloomy as the mood of the people, while all sorts 
of rumors filled the air as to the particulars of the 
assassination and the fate of Booth. |Johnson was 
inaugurated at eleven o'clock on the morning of 
the 15th, and was at once surrounded by radical 
and conservative politicians, who were alike anxious 
about the situation. I spent most of the afternoon 
in a political caucus, held for the purpose of con- 
sidering the necessity for a new Cabinet and a line 
of policy less conciliatory than that of Mr. Lincoln; 
and while everybody was shocked at his murder, 
the feeling was nearly universal that the accession 
of Johnson to the Presidency would prove a god- 
send to the country. \ Aside from Mr. Lincoln's 
known policy of tenderness to the Rebels, which 



256 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

now so jarred upon the feelings of the hour, his well- 
known views on the subject of reconstruction were 
as distasteful as possible to radical Republicans. 
In his last public utterance, only three days before 
his death, he had declared his adherence to the plan 
of reconstruction announced by him in December, 
1863, which in the following year so stirred the irt 
of Wade and Winter Davis as an attempt of the 
Executive to usurp the 'powers of Congress. Ac- 
cording to this plan the work of reconstruction in 
the rebel States was to be inaugurated and carried 
on by those only who were qualified to vote under 
the Constitution and laws of these States as they ex- 
isted prior to the Rebellion. Of course the negroes 
of the South could have no voice in framing the in- 
stitutions under which they were to live, and the 
question of negro suffrage would thus have been 
settled by the President, if he had lived and been 
able to maintain this policy, while no doubt was 
felt that this calamity had now been averted and the 
way opened for the radical policy which afterward 
involved the impeachment of Johnson, but finally 
prevailed. It was forgotten in the fever and turbu- 
lence of the moment, that Mr. Lincoln, who was 
never an obstinate man, and who in the matter of 
his Proclamation of Emancipation had surrendered 
his own judgment under the pressure of public 
opinion, would not have been likely to wrestle with 
Congress and the country in a mad struggle for his 
own way. 



INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. 257 

On the following day, in pursuance of a previous 
engagement, the Committee on the Conduct of the 
War met the President at his quarters in the Treas- 
ury Department. He received us with decided 
cordiality, and Mr. Wade said to him : "Johnson, 
we have faith in you. By the gods, there will be 
no trouble nov/ in running the government ! " The 
President thanked him, and went on to define his 
well-remembered policy at that time. " I hold," 
said he, ''that robbery is a crime; rape is a crime; 
murder is a crime ; treason is a crime, and crime must 
be punished. Treason must be made infamous, and 
traitors must be impoverished." i We were all 
cheered and encouraged by this brave talk, and 
while we were rejoiced that the leading conserva- 
tives of the country were not in Washington, we 
felt that the presence and influence of the commit- 
tee, of which Johnson had been a member, would 
aid the Administration in getting on the right track. 
We met him again the next day and found the 
symptoms of a vigorous policy still favorable, and 
although I had some misgivings, the general feel- 
ing was one of unbounded confidence in his sin- 
cerity and firmness, and that he would act upon 
the advice of General Butler by inaugurating a 
policy of his own, instead of administering on the 
political estate of his predecessor. 

In the meantime the prevailing excitement was 
greatly aggravated by the news of the capitulation 
between General Sherman and General Johnson 
17 



6-^^ 



258 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

of the i6th of April. Its practical surrender of all 
the fruits of the national triumph so soon after the 
murder of the President, produced an effect on the 
public mind which can not be descriibed. General 
Sherman had heard of the assassination when the 
capitulation was made, and could not have been 
ignorant of the feeling it had aroused. On the face 
of the proceeding his action seemed a wanton be- 
trayal of the country to its enemies ; but when this 
betrayal followed so swiftly the frightful tragedy 
which was then believed to have been instigated by 
the Confederate authorities, the patience of the peo- 
ple became perfectly exhausted. For the time being, 
all the glory of his great achievements in the war 
seemed to be forgotten in the anathemas which 
were showered upon him from every quarter of the 
land ; but the prompt repudiation of his stipulations 
by the Administration soon assuaged the popular 
discontent, while it provoked an estrangement be- 
tween Secretary Stanton and himself which was 
never healed. 

The outpouring of the people at Mr. Lincoln's 
funeral was wholly unprecedented, and every pos- 
sible arrangement was made by which they could 
manifest their grief for their murdered President ; 
but their solicitude for the state of the country was 
too profound to be intermitted. What policy was 
now to be pursued? Mr. Lincoln's latest utterances 
had been far from assuring or satisfactory. The 
question of reconstruction had found no logical 



INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR, 259 

solution, and all was confusion respecting it. The 
question of negro suffrage was slowly coming to 
the front, and could not be much longer evaded. 
The adequate punishment of the rebel leaders was 
the demand of the hour. What would the new 
President do? He had suddenly become the cen- 
tral figure of American politics, and both radicals 
and conservatives were as curious to know what 
line of policy he would follow as they were anx- 
ious to point his way. His demeanor, at first, 
seemed modest and commendable, but his egotism 
soon began to assert itself, while his passion for 
stump-speaking was pampered by the delegations 
which began to pour into the city from various 
States and flatter him by formal addresses, to which 
he replied at length. This business was kept up 
till the people became weary of the din and clatter 
of words, and impatient for action. 



CHAPTER XII. 

RECONSTRUCTION AND SUFFRAGE — THE LAND QUES- 
TION. 

Visit ot Indianians to the President — Gov. Morton and recon- 
struction — Report of Committee on the Conduct of the War — 
Discussion of negro suffrage and incidents — Personal matters 
— Suffrage in the District of Columbia — The Fourteenth Con- 
stitutional Amendment — Breach between the President and 
Congress — Blaine and Conkling — Land bounties and the 
Homestead Law. 

On the twenty-first of April I joined a large 
crowd of Indianians in one of the calls on the 
President referred to at the close of the last chapter. 
Gov. Morton headed the movement, which I now 
found had a decidedly political significance. He 
read a lengthy and labored address on " The Whole 
Duty of Man " respecting the question of Recon- 
struction. He told the President that a State could 
" neither secede nor by any possible means be taken 
out of the Union "; and he supported and illustrated 
this proposition by some very remarkable state- 
ments. He elaborated the proposition that the loyal 
people of a State have the right to govern it ; but 
he did not explain what would become of the State 
if the people were all disloyal, or the loyal so few as 
{260) 



RECONSTRUCTIOX AND SUFFRAGE. 26 1 

to be utterly helpless. The lawful governments of 
the South were overthrown by treason ; and the 
Governor declared there was " no power in the 
Federal Government to punish the people of a State 
collectively, by reducing it to a territorial condi- 
tion, since the crime of treason is individual, and 
can only be treated individually." According 
to this doctrine a rebellious State becomes inde- 
pendent. If the people could rightfully be over- 
powered by the national authority, that very fact 
would at once re-clothe them in all their rights, 
just as if they had never rebelled. In framing 
their new governments Congress would have no 
right to prescribe any conditions, or to govern 
them in any way pending the work of State recon- 
struction, since this would be to recognize the 
States as Territories, and violate the principle of 
State rights. The Governor's theory of recon- 
struction, in fact, made our war for the Union 
flagrantly unconstitutional. The crime of treason 
being " individual," and only to '' be treated indi- 
vidually," we had no right to hold prisoners of 
war, seize property, and capture and confiscate 
vessels, without a regular indictment and trial ; 
and this being so, every Rebel in arms was in the 
full legal possession of his political rights, and no 
power could prevent him from exercising them ex- 
cept through judicial conviction of treason in the 
district in which the overt act was committed. 
Singularly enough, he seemed entirely unaware of 



262 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the well-settled principle which made our war for 
the Union a territorial conflict, like that of a war 
with Mexico or England; that the Rebels, while 
still liable to be hung or otherwise dealt with for 
treason, had taken upon themselves the further 
character of public enemies ; and that being now 
conquered they were conquered enemies, having 
simply the rights of a conquered people. The 
Governor further informed the President that if the 
revolted districts should be dealt with as m'ere 
Territories, or conquered provinces, the nation 
would be obliged to pay the debts contracted by 
them prior to the war. These remarkable utter- 
ances, which he repudiated in less than a year 
afterward, were emphatically endorsed by the Pres- 
ident, who entered upon the same theme at a dis- 
mal length, freely indulging in his habit of bad 
English and incoherence of thought. I was dis- 
gusted, and sorry that the confidence of so many 
of my radical friends had been entirely misplaced. 
During the latter part of April and early part of 
May the Committee on the Conduct of the War 
completed its final report, making eight considera- 
ble volumes, and containing valuable material for 
any trustworthy history of the great conflict. Its 
opinions were sometimes colored by the passions 
of the hour, and this was especially true in the case 
of General McClellan; but subsequent events have 
justified its conclusions generally as to nearly every 
ofificer and occurrence investigated, while its use- 



RECONSTRUCTION AND SUFFRAGE. 263 

fulness in exposing military blunders and incompe- 
tence, and in finally inaugurating the vigorous war 
policy which saved the country, will scarcely be 
questioned by any man sufficiently well-informed 
and fair-minded to give an opinion. 

On the 1 2th of May, a caucus of Republicans 
was held at the National Hotel to consider the 
necessity of taking decisive measures for saving 
the new Administration from'the conservative con- 
trol which then threatened it. Senators Wade and 
Sumner both insisted that the President was in no 
danger, and declared, furthermore, that he was in 
favor of negro suffi'age; and no action was taken 
because of the general confidence in him which I 
was surprised to find still prevailed. In the mean- 
time, pending the general drift of events, the suf- 
frage question was constantly gaining in signifi- ■ 
cance, and demanding a settlement. It was neither 
morally nor logically possible to escape it ; and on 
my return to my constituents I prepared for a thor- 
ough canvass of my district. The Republicans 
were everywhere divided on the question, while the 
current of opinion was strongly against the intro- 
duction of the issue as premature. The politicians 
all opposed it on the plea that it would divide 
the Republicans and restore the Democrats to 
power, and that we must wait for the growth 
of a public opinion that would justify its agi- 
tation. Governor Morton opposed the policy 
with inexpressible bitterness, declaring, with an 



264 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



oath, that " negro suffrage must be put down," 
while every possible effort was made to array the 
soldiers against it. His hostility to the suffrage 
wing of his party seemed to be quite as relentless 
as to the Rebels, while the great body of the Repub- 
licans of the district deferred strongly to his views. 
In the beginning of the canvass I even found a 
considerable portion of my old anti-slavery friends 
unprepared to follow me ; but feeling perfectly sure 
I was right, and that I could revolutionize the 
general opinion, I entered upon the work, and 
prosecuted it with all my might for nearly four 
months. My task was an arduous one, but I 
found the people steadily yielding up their preju- 
dices, and ready to lay hold of the truth when 
fairly and dispassionately presented, while the sol- 
diers were among the first to accept my teachings. 
The tide was at length so evidently turning in my 
favor that vOn the 28th of September Governor 
Morton was induced to make his elaborate speech 
at Richmond,) denouncing the whole theory of 
Republican reconstruction as subsequently carried 
out, and opposing the policy of negro suffrage by 
arguments which he seemed to regard as over- 
whelming. He made a dismal picture of the igno- 
rance and degradation of the plantation negroes of 
the South, and scouted the policy of arming them 
with political power. But their fitness for the ballot 
was a subordinate question. A great national 
emergency pleaded for their right to it on other 



RECOXSTRL'CTION AND SUFFRAGE. 265 



and far more imperative grounds. The question 
involved the welfare of both races, and the issues 
of the war. It involved not merely the fate of the 
negro, but the safety of society. It was, moreover, 
a question of national honor and gratitude, from 
which no escape was morally possible. To leave 
the ballot in the hands of the ex-rebels, and with- 
hold it from these helpless millions, would be to turn 
them over to the unhindered tyranny and misrule 
of their enemies, who were then smarting under the 
humiliation of their failure, and making the con- 
dition of the freedmen more intolerable than slavery 
itself, through local laws and police regulations. 

The Governor referred to the Constitution and 
laws of Indiana, denying the ballot to her intelli- 
gent negroes, and subjecting colored men to prose- 
cution and fine for coming into the State ; and 
asked with what face her people could insist upon 
conferring the suffrage upon the negroes of the 
Southern States ? But this was an evasion of the 
question. The people of Indiana had no right to 
take advantage of their own wrong, or to sacrifice 
the welfare of four million blacks on the altar of 
Northern consistency. He should have preached 
the duty of practical repentance in Indiana, instead 
of making the sins of her people an excuse for a 
far greater inhumanity to the negroes of the South. 

He urged that the policy of negro suffrage would 
give the lie to all the arguments that had ever 
been employed against slavery as degrading and 



266 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

brutalizing to its victims. He said it was '* to pay 
the highest compliment to the institution of slav- 
ery," and " stultify ourselves." But this was be- 
littling a great national question, by the side of 
which all considerations of party consistency were 
utterly trivial and contemptible. The ballot for 
the negro was a logical necessity, and it was a 
matter of the least possible consequence whether 
the granting of it would " stultify ourselves " or 
not. 

He insisted that the true policy was to give the 
Southern negroes a probation of fifteen or twenty 
years to prepare for the ballot. He would give 
them " time to acquire a little property ; time to 
get a little education ; time to learn something 
about the simplest forms of business, and to pre- 
pare themselves for the exercise of political power.'* 
But he did not explain how all this was to be done, 
under the circumstances of their condition. He 
declared that not one of them in five hundred 
could read, or was worth five dollars in property 
of any kind, owning nothing but their bodies, and 
living on the plantations of white men upon whom 
they were dependent for employment and subsist- 
ence. How .could such men acquire " education," 
and " property," under the absolute sway of a peo- 
ple who regarded them with loathing and contempt ? 
Who would grant them this " probation," and help 
them turn it to good account ? Was some miracle 
to be wrought through which the slave-masters 



RECONSTR UCTION AND SUFFRA GE. 267 

were to be transfigured into negro apostles and 
devotees ? Besides, under Governor Morton's 
theory of reconstruction and State rights, neither 
Congress nor the people of the loyal States had 
anything to do with the question. It was no more 
their concern in South Carolina than in Massa- 
chusetts. His suggestion of a probation for South- 
ern negroes was therefore an impertinence. If not, 
why did he not recommend a " probation " for the 
hordes of " white trash " that were as unfit for 
political power as the negroes ? 

He was very earnest and eloquent in his condem- 
nation of Mr. Sumner for proposing to give the bal- 
lot to the negroes and disfranchise the white Rebels, 
but his moral vision failed to discern anything amiss 
in his own ghastlypolicyofarming the white Rebels 
with the ballot and denying it to the loyal negroes. 

He argued that the right to vote carried with it 
the right to hold office, and that negro suffrage 
would lead to the election of negro Governors, negro 
judges, negro members of Congress, a negro 
balance of power in our politics, and a war of races. 
He seemed to have no faith at all in the beneficent 
measures designed to guard the black race from out- 
rage and wrong, while full of apprehension that the 
heavens would fall if such measures were adopted, v. 

This speech was published in a large pamphlet - \ 
edition and extensively scattered throughout the 
country ; but it proved a help rather than a hin- 
drance to my enterprise. I replied to it in several 



268 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

incisive newspaper articles, and made its arguments 
a text for a still more thorough discussion of the 
issue on the stump, and at the close of my canvass 
the Republicans of the district were as nearly a unit 
in my favor as a party can be made respecting any 
controverted doctrine. 

I now extended my labors briefly outside of my 
district, and by special invitation from citizens of 
Indianapolis and members of the Legislature, then 
in session, I spoke in that city on the 17th of No- 
vember. Every possible effort was made by the 
Johnsonized Republicans to prevent me from hav- 
ing an audience, but they failed utterly; and I ana- 
lyzed the positions of Governor Morton in a speech 
of two hours, which was reported for the "Cincinnati 
Gazette" and subsequently published in a large pam- 
phlet edition. The political rage and exasperation 
which now prevailed in the ranks of the Anti-Suf- 
frage faction can be more readily imagined than de- 
scribed. Their organ, the " Indianapolis Journal," 
poured out upon me an incredible deliverance of 
vituperation and venom for scattering my heresies 
outside of my Congressional district, declaring that 
I had "the temper of a hedgehog, the adhesiveness 
of a barnacle, the vanity of a peacock, the vindic- 
tiveness of a Corsican, the hypocrisy of Aminadab 
Sleek and the duplicity of the devil." I rather en- 
joyed these paroxysms of malignity, which broke 
out all over the State among the Governor's con- 
servative satellites, since my only offense was fidel- 



RECONSTRUCTION AND SUFFRAGE. 269 

ity to my political opinions, the soundness of which 
I was finding fully justified by events ; for the friends 
of the Governor, in a few short months, gathered 
together and cremated all the copies of his famous 
speech which could be found. But the disowned 
document was printed as a campaign tract by the 
Democrats for a dozen successive years afterward, 
and circulated largely in several of the Northern 
States, while the Governor himself, by a sudden 
and splendid somersault, became the champion and 
exemplar of the very heresies which had so furi- 
ously kindled his ire against me. These perform- 
ances are sufficiently remarkable to deserve notice. 
They did much to make Indiana politics spicy and 
picturesque, and showed how earnestly the radical 
and conservative wings of the Republican party 
could wage war against the common enemy with- 
out in the least impairing their ability or disposition 
to fight each other. 

I have referred to these facts because they form 
a necessary part of the story I am telling. The 
question of Negro Suffrage was a very grave one, 
and the circumstances connected with its introduc- 
tion as a political issue are worthy of record ; while 
Governor Morton was a sort of phenomenal figure 
in American politics during the war period, and 
played a very remarkable part in the affairs of In • , \ 
diana. It has been aptly said of him, and not by 
an enemy, that his inconsistencies, in a study of his 
character, form the most charming part of it, and 



270 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

that no man in public life ever brought such magnif- 
icent resources to the support of both sides of a 
question. His force of will was as matchless as his 
ambition for power was boundless and unappeasa- 
ble. He was made for revolutionary times, and 
his singular energy of character was pre-eminently 
destructive; but it can not be denied that his serv- 
ices to the country in this crisis were great. Mr. 
Von Hoist, in his " Constitutional and Political 
History of the United States," has a chapter on 
" The Reign of Andrew Jackson." When the his- 
tory of Indiana shall be written, it might fitly con- 
tain a chapter on " The Reign of Oliver P. Morton." 
He made himself not merely the master of the 
Democratic party of the State, and of its Rebel ele- 
ment, but of his own party as well. His will, to a 
surprising extent, had the force of law in matters 
of both civil and military administration. His 
vigor in action and great personal magnetism so 
rallied the people to his support, that with the 
rarest exceptions the prominent leaders of his party 
quietly succumbed to his ambition, and recoiled 
from the thought of confronting him, even when 
they believed him in the wrong. 

His hostility to me began with my election to 
Congress in 1849, i"^ which, as a Free Soiler, I had 
the united support of the Democratic party of m}^ 
district, of which he was then a member. I never 
obtained his forgiveness for my success in that con- 
test, and his unfriendliness was afterward aggra- 



RECONSTRUCTION AND SUFFRAGE. 27 I 

vated by his failure as a Republican leader to sup- 
plant me in the district, and it continued to the 
end. I knew him from his boyhood. We resided 
in the same village nearly twenty years, and began 
our acquaintance as members of the same debating 
club. For years we were intimate and attached 
friends, and I believe no man was before me in ap- 
preciating his talents and predicting for him a ca- 
reer of political distinction and usefulness. During 
the war, earnest efforts were made by his friends 
and mine looking to a reconciliation, and the res- 
toration of that harmony in the party which good 
men on both sides greatly coveted; but all such 
efforts necessarily failed. If I had been willing to 
subordinate my political convictions and sense of 
duty to his ambition, peace could at once have 
been restored ; but as this was impossible, I was 
obliged to accept the warfare which continued and 
increased, and which I always regretted and de- 
plored. I only make these statements in justice 
to the truth. 

The bill providing for negro suffrage in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia was among the first important 
measures of the Thirty-ninth Congress. The de- 
bate upon it in January, 1866, was singularly able 
and thorough, aid gave strong evidence of polit- 
ical progress. All efforts to postpone the measure, 
or to make suffrage restrictive, were voted down, 
and on the announcement of its passage the cheer- 
ing was tremendous. Beginning on the floor, it 



2/2 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

was quickly caught up by the g-alleries, and the 
scene resembled that which followed the passage 
of the Constitutional Amendment already referred 
to. The majority was over two to one, thus 
clearly foreshadowing- the enfranchisement of the 
negro in the insurrectionary districts. I believe 
only two of my colleagues voted with me for its 
passage. 

The question of reconstruction was brought 
directly before Congress by the report of the joint 
select committee on that subject, submitting the 
Fourteenth Constitutional Amendment. The sec- 
ond section of the Amendment was a measure of 
compromise, and attempted to unite the radical 
and conservative wings of the party by restricting 
the right of representation in the South to the basis 
of suffrage, instead of extending that basis in con- 
formity to the right of representation. It was a 
proposition to the Rebels that if they would agree 
that the negroes should not be counted in the basis 
of representation, we would hand them over, un- 
conditionally, to the tender mercies of their old 
masters. It sanctioned the barbarism of the Rebel 
State Governments in denying the right of repre- 
sentation to their freedmen, simply because of their 
race and color, and thus struck at the very prin- 
ciple of Democracy. It was a scheme of cold- 
blooded treachery and ingratitude to a people 
who had contributed nearly two hundred thou- 
sand soldiers to the armies of the Union, 



RECONSTRUCTION AiVD SUFFRAGE. 273 

and among whom no traitor had ever been 
found ; and it was urged as a means of securing 
equality of white representation in the Government 
when that object could have been perfectly attained 
by a constitutional amendment arming the negroes 
of the South with the ballot, instead of leaving them 
in the absolute power of their enemies. Of course, 
no man could afford to vote against the proposi- 
tion to cut down rebel representation to the basis 
of suffrage ; but to recognize the authority of these 
States to make political outlaws of their colored 
citizens and incorporate this principle into the Con- 
stitution of the United States, was a wanton be- 
trayal of justice and humanity. Congress, how- 
ever, was unprepared for more thorough work. 
The conservative policy which had so long sought 
to spare slavery was obliged, as usual, to feel its 
way cautiously, and wait on the logic of events ; 
while the negro, as I shall show, was finally in- 
debted for the franchise to the desperate madness 
of his enemies in rejecting the dishonorable prop- 
osition of his friends. 

As the question of reconstruction became more 
and more engrossing, the signs of a breach between 
the President and Congress revealed themselves. 
He had disappointed the hopes of his radical friends, 
and begun to show his partiality for conservative 
and Democratic ideas. His estrangement from his 
party probably had its genesis in the unfortunate 
exhibition of himself at the inauguration of Mr. Lin- 
18 



274 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

coin, and the condemnation of it by leading Repub- 
licans, which he could not forget. Instead of keep- 
ing his promise to be the " Moses " of the colored 
people he turned his back upon them in a very of- 
fensive public speech. His veto of the Freedmen's 
Bureau bill finally stripped him of all disguises, and 
placed him squarely against Congress and the peo- 
ple, while the House met his defiance by a concur- 
rent resolution emphatically condemning his recon- 
struction policy, and thus opening the way for the 
coming struggle between Executive usurpation and 
the power of Congress. His maudlin speech on the 
22d of February to the political mob which called 
on him, branding as traitors the leaders of the party 
which had elected him, completely dishonored him 
in the opinion of all Republicans, and awakened 
general alarm. Everybody could now see the mis- 
take of his nomination at Baltimore, and that he 
was simply a narrow-minded dogmatist and a bull- 
dog in disposition, who would do anything in his 
power to thwart the wishes of his former friends. 

During the month of March of this year, at the 
request of intelligent working men in the employ of 
the Government, I introduced a bill making eight 
hours a day's work in the navy yards of the United 
States. This was the beginning of the eight hour 
agitation in Congress. I had not given much 
thought to the necessity for such legislation in this 
country, but the proposed measure seemed to me 
an augury of good to the working classes, as the 



RECONSTRUCTION AND SUFFRAGE. 2/5 

Ten Hour movement had proved itself to be twenty 
years before. It could plead the time laws of En- 
gland as a precedent, enacted to protect humanity 
against the " Lords of the Loom." These laws rec- 
ognized labor as capital endowed with human needs, 
and entitled to the special guardianship of the State, 
and not as merchandise merely, to be governed 
solely by the law of supply and demand. While I 
was a believer in Free Trade, I was not willing to 
follow its logic in all cases of conflict between cap- 
ital and labor. My warfare against chattel slavery 
and the monopoly of the soil had assumed the duty 
of the Government to secure fair play and equal 
opportunities to the laboring masses, and I was 
willing to embody that idea in a specific legislative 
proposition, and thus invite its discussion and the 
settlement of it upon its merits. 

In April of this year a notable passage at arms 
occurred in the House between Mr. Conkling: and 
Mr. Blaine, which has been made historic by the 
subsequent career of these great Republican chiefs. 
The altercation between them was protracted and 
very personal, and grew out of the official conduct 
of Provost Marshal General Fry. The animosity 
engendered between these rivals at this early day 
seems never to have been intermitted, and it can 
best be appreciated by referring to the closing pas- 
sages of their remarkable war of words on the 30th 
of this month. Mr. Conkling's language was very 
contemptuous, and in concluding he said : 



2/6 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

**If the member from Maine had the least idea 
how profoundly indifferent I am to his opinion upon 
the subject which he has been discussing, or upon 
any other subject personal to me, I think he would 
hardly take the trouble to rise here and express his 
opinion. And as it is a matter of entire indifference 
to me what that opinion maybe, I certainly will not 
detain the House by discussing the question whether 
it is well or ill founded, or by noticing what he says. 
I submit the whole matter to the members of the 
House, making, as I do, an apology (for I feel that 
it is due to the House) for the length of time which 
I have occupied in consequence of being drawn into 
explanations, originally by an interruption which I 
pronounced the other day ungentlemanly and im- 
pertinent, and having nothing whatever to do with 
the question." 

Mr. Blaine, in reply, referred to Mr. Conkling's 
" grandiloquent swell " and his "turkey gobbler 
strut," and concluded: 

" I know that within the last five weeks, as mem- 
bers of the House will recollect, an extra strut has 
characterized the gentleman's bearing. It is not 
his fault. It is the fault of another. That gifted 
and satirical writer, Theodore Tilton, of the "New 
York Independent," spent some weeks recently in 
this city. His letters published in that paper, em- 
braced, with many serious statements, a little jocose 
satire, a part of which was the statement that the 
mantle of the late Winter Davis had fallen upon 



RECONSTRUCTION AND SUFFRAGE. 277 

the member from New York. The gentleman took 
it seriously, and it has given his strut additional 
pomposity. The resemblance is great. It is strik- 
ing. Hyperion to a satyr, Thersites to Hercules, 
mud to marble, dung-hill to diamond, a singed cat 
to a Bengal tiger, a whining puppy to a roaring 
lion. Shade oi the mighty Davis, forgive the 
almost profanation of that jocose satire !" 

This uncomely sparring match seemed to 
have no significance at the time beyond the 
amusement it afforded and the personal discredit it 
attached to the combatants; but in its later conse- 
quences it has not only seriously involved the 
political fortunes of both these ambitious men, but 
rent the Republican party itself into warring 
factions. Still more, it has connected itself in the 
same way, and not very remotely, with the nomi- 
nation of General Garfield in 1880, and his subse- 
quent assassination. Such are the strange political 
revenges of a personal quarrel. 

During this session of Congress the policy of 
Military Land Bounties was very earnestly agi- 
tated, and threatened the most alarming conse- 
quences. Probably no great question has been so 
imperfectly understood by our public men as the 
land question, and the truth of this is attested by 
the multiplied schemes of pillage and plunder to 
which the public domain has been exposed within 
the past thirty or forty years. Among these the 
project of Land Bounties to soldiers has been con- 



2/8 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

spicuous. Of the millions of acres disposed of 
by the Government through assignable land-war- 
rants in the pretended interest of the soldiers of the 
Mexican War a very small fraction was appropri- 
ated to their use. The great body of the land fell Into 
the hands of monopolists, who thus hindered the 
settlement and productive wealth of the country, 
while the sum received by the soldier for his war- 
rant was in very many cases a mere mockery of 
his just claims, and in no instance an adequate 
bounty. The policy, however, had become tradi- 
tional, and now, at the close of the grandest of all 
our wars, it was quite natural for the country's 
defenders to claim its supposed benefits. Con- 
gress was flooded with their petitions, and it 
required uncommon political courage to oppose 
their wishes. It was very plausibly urged that the 
Nation, with its heavy load of debt, could not pay 
a bounty in money, and that it should be done by 
drawing liberally upon the thousand million acres 
of the public domain. Some of the advocates of 
this policy openly favored the repeal of the Home- 
stead law for this purpose, just as Thurlow Weed, 
earlier In the war, had demanded its repeal so that 
our public lands could be mortgaged to European 
capitalists In security for the money we needed to 
carry on the struggle. The situation became crit- 
ical. Everybody was eager to reward the soldier, 
and especially the politicians ; and there seemed to 
be no other way to do It than by bounties in land, 



KECONSTRUCriON AXD SCFFRAGE. 279 

for which all our previous wars furnished prece- 
dents. The House Committee on Public Lands 
considered the question with great care and anxiety, 
and in the hope of check-mating the project made 
a report in response to one of the many petitions 
for land bounty which had been referred to it, em- 
bodying some very significant facts. It showed 
that more than two millions and a quarter of sol- 
diers would be entitled to a bounty in land, and that 
it would require more than one third of the public 
domain remaining undisposed of, and cover nearly 
all of it that was really fit for agriculture; that the 
warrants would undoubtedly be made assignable, 
as in the case of previous bounties, and that land 
speculation would thus find its new birth and have 
free course in its dreadful ravages ; and that it 
would prove the practical overthrow of the policy 
of our pre-emption and homestead laws and turn 
back the current of American civilization and prog- 
ress. The report further insisted that the Nation 
could not honorably plead poverty in bar of the 
ofreat debt it owed its defenders, and it was accom- 
panied by a bill providing a bounty in money at the 
rate of eight and one third dollars per month for 
the time of their service, which was drawn after con- 
ferring with intelligent men among them who fully 
appreciated the facts and arguments of the commit- 
tee. This report and its accompanying bill had an 
almost magical effect. They not only perfectly sat- 
isfied the soldiers everywhere, but revolutionized 



280 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the Opinion of both Houses of Congress, and thus 
saved the public domain from the wholesale spolia- 
tion that had threatened it. The bill was referred 
to the Military Committee, and afterward became 
well known by the title of "General Schenck's bill." 
It passed the House, but failed in the Senate. It 
passed the Houserepeatedly at different sessions of 
Congress afterward, although it never became a 
law ; but it was the timely and fortunate instrument 
through which the public domain was saved from 
the wreck which menaced it in the hasty adoption 
of a scheme which would have proved as worthless 
to our soldiers as disastrous to the country. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

MINERAL LANDS AND THE RIGHT OF PRE-EMPTION. 

The lead and copper lands of the Northwest — The gold-bearing 
regions of the Pacific, and their disposition — A legislative 
reminiscence — Mining Act of 1866, and how it was passed — 
Its deplorable failure, and its lesson — Report of the Land Com- 
mission — The Right of Pre-emption, and the '* Dred Scott 
decision " of the settlers. 

The action of the Government in dealing with 
the mineral lands of the United States forms one 
of the most curious chapters in the history of leg- 
islation. It had its beginning in the famous Con- 
gressional Ordinance of May 20, 1785, which re- 
served one third part of all gold, silver, lead and 
copper mines to be sold or otherwise disposed of 
as Congress might direct. From this time till the 
discovery of gold in California in 1848, the legis- 
lation of Congress respecting mineral lands related 
exclusively to those containing the base or merely 
useful metals, and applied only to the regions now 
embraced by the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, 
Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. The policy of reserv- 
ing mineral lands from sale was obviously of 
feudal origin, and naturally led to the leasing of 
such lands by the Government, which was inau- 

(281) 



282 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

gurated by the Act of Congress of March 3, 1807. 
The Act of Congress of March 3, 1829, provided 
for the sale of the reserved lead mines and contig- 
uous lands in Missouri, on six months' notice, but 
mineral lands elsewhere remained reserved, and 
continued to be leased by the Government. This 
policy was thoroughly and perseveringly tried, 
and proved ' utterly unprofitable and ruinous. 
President Polk, in his message of December 2, 
1845, declared that the income derived from the 
leasing system for the years 1841, 1842, 1843 and 
1844 was less than one fourth of its expense, and 
he recommended its abolition, and that these lands 
be brought into market. The leasing policy 
drew into the mining regions a population of va- 
grants, idlers and gamblers, who resisted the pay- 
ment of taxes on the product of the mines, and 
defied the agents of the Government It excluded 
sober and intelligent citizens, and hindered the estab- 
lishment of organized communities and the devel- 
opment of the mines. The miners were violently 
opposed to the policy of sale, but the evils incident 
to the leasing policy became so intolerable that 
the Government was at length obliged to provide 
for the sale of the lands in fee, which it did by Acts 
of Congress of July 11, 1846, and March i and 3, 
1847. The tracts occupied and worked by the 
miners under their leases possessed every variety 
of shape and boundary, but there were no diffi- 
culties which were not readily adjusted under the 



MINERAL LANDS— PRE-EMPTION. 283 

rectangular system of surveys and the regulations 
of the Land Department. A new class of men at 
once took possession of these regions as owners of 
the soil, brought their families with them, laid the 
foundations of social order, expelled the semi-bar- 
barians who had secured a temporary occupancy, 
and thus, at once promoted their own welfare, the 
prosperity of the country, and .the financial inter- 
ests of the Government. Under this reformed pol- 
icy the lead and copper lands of the regions named 
were disposed of in fee. 

But the gold-bearing regions covered by our 
Mexican acquisitions created a new dispensation 
in mining, and invited the attention of Congress to 
the consideration of a new and exceedingly impor- 
tant question. How should these mineral lands be 
disposed of .-^ They covered an area of a million 
square miles, and their exploration and development 
became a matter of the most vital moment, not only 
in a financial point of view, but as a means of pro- 
moting the settlement and tillage of the agricultural 
lands contiguous to the mineral deposits. President 
Fillmore, in his message of December 2, 1849, ^^C" 
ommended the sale of these lands in small par- 
cels, and Mr. Ewing, his Secretary of the Interior, 
urged upon Congress the consideration of the sub- 
ject, and recommended the policy of leasing them ; 
but no attention seems to have been given to these 
recommendations. By Act of Congress of Sep- 
tember 27, 1850, mineral lands in Oregon were re- 



284 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

served from sale; and by Acts of March 3, 1853, 
and of July 22, 1854, they were reserved in Cali- 
fornia and New Mexico. This was the extent of 
Congressional action. Early in the late war, the 
Secretary of the Interior, Hon. Caleb B. Smith, re- 
ferred to the question, and the Commissioner of 
the General Land Office afterward repeatedly rec- 
ommended the policy of leasing, but Congress 
took no notice of the subject. My interest in the 
question was first awakened in the fall of 1864, in 
carefully overhauling our land policy. Our mineral 
lands for more than sixteen years had been open to 
all comers from whatever quarter of the globe, 
during which time more than a thousand million 
dollars had been extracted, from which not a dollar 
of revenue reached the National Treasury save the 
comparatively trifling amount derived from the In- 
ternal Revenue tax on bullion. This fact was so 
remarkable that it was difficult to accept it as true. 
The Government had no policy whatever in deal- 
ing with these immense repositories of national 
wealth, and declined to have any ; for a policy im- 
plies that something is to be done, and points out 
the method of doing it. It had prohibited the sale 
of mineral lands, and then come to a dead halt. The 
Constitution expressly provides that Congress shall 
have power *' to make all needful rules and regula- 
tions respecting the territory or other property be- 
longing to the United States"; but Congress, in 
reserving these lands from sale and taking no 



MIXER AL LANDS— PRE-EMPTION. 285 

measures whatever respecting their products, sim- 
ply abandoned them, and, as the trustee of the 
Nation, became as recreant as the father who aban- 
dons his minor child. 

The case was a very curious one, and the more 
I considered it, the more astonished I became at 
the strange indifference of the Government, and 
that no public man of any party had ever given the 
subject the slightest attention. The Nation had 
been selling its lands containing iron, copper and 
lead, and the policy of vesting an absolute fee in in- 
dividual proprietors had been accepted on actual 
trial, and after the leasing policy had signally failed,, 
and I could see nothing in the distinction between 
the useful and precious metals which required a 
different policy for the latter. Some policy was 
absolutely demanded. The country, loaded down 
by a great and constantly increasing war debt, 
could not afford to turn away from so tempting a 
source of revenue. To sleep over its grand oppor- 
tunity was as stupid as it was criminal. It was ob- 
vious that if the Government continued to reser\ e 
these lands from sale, some form of tax or royalty 
on their products must be resorted to as a measure 
of financial policy ; but this would have involved the 
same political anomaly as the policy of leasing, and 
the same failure. In principle it was the same. To 
retain the fee of the lands in the Government and im- 
pose a rent upon their occupants, would make the 
Government a great landlord, and the miners its ten- 



286 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

ants. Such a policy would not be American, but 
European. It would not be Democratic, but Feudal. 
It would be to follow the Governments of the Old 
World, which reserve their mineral lands for the 
Crown, because they are esteemed too precious for 
the people. It was at war with our theory of 
Democracy, which has respect chiefly to the indi- 
vidual, and seeks to strengthen the Government 
by guarding his rights and promoting his well- 
being. These considerations convinced me that 
the time had come to abandon the non-action course 
of the Government, and adopt a policy in harmony 
with our general legislation ; and that the survey 
and sale of these lands in fee was the best and only 
method of promoting security of titles, permanent 
settlements, and thorough development. As early 
as December, 1864, I therefore introduced a bill 
embodying this policy, which was followed by a 
similar measure, early in the Thirty-ninth Congress, 
accompanied by an elaborate report, arguing the 
question pretty fully, and combating all the objec- 
tions to the principle and policy of sale. My views 
were commended by Secretary McCullough, as 
they had been by Mr. Chase, while I was glad to 
find them supported by intelligent men from Cali- 
fornia, who spoke from actual observation and ex- 
tensive experience in mining. 

But although this measure fully protected all 
miners in the right of exploration and discovery, 
and^carefully guarded against any interference with 



MINERAL LANDS— PRE-EMPTION. 287 

vested rights, the idea was in some way rapidly 
and extensively propagated that it contemplated a 
sweeping confiscation of all their claims, and the 
less informed among them became wild with ex- 
citement. The politicians of California and Neva- 
da, instead of endeavoring to enlighten them and 
quiet this excitement, yielded to it absolutely. 
They became as completely its instruments as they 
have since been of the Anti-Mongolian feeling. 
They argued, at first, that no Congressional legis- 
lation was necessary, and that while the Govern- 
ment should retain the fee of these lands, the 
miners should have the entire control of them un- 
der regulations prescribed by themselves. This, 
it was believed, would placate the miners and set- 
tle the question ; but the introduction of the meas- 
ure referred to, and the agitation of the ques- 
tion, had made some form of legislation inevitable, 
and the question now was to determine what that 
legislation should be. Senators Conness of Cali- 
fornia, and Stewart of Nevada, who were exceed- 
ingly hostile to the bill I had introduced, and 
feared its passage, sought to avert it by carrying 
through the Senate " a bill to regulate the occupa- 
tion of mineral lands and to extend the right of 
pre-emption thereto," which they hoped would 
satisfy their constituents and prevent further legis- 
lation. They supported it as the next best thing 
to total non-action by Congress. It provided for 
giving title to the miners, but it did this by practi- 



288 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS, 



cally abdicating the jurisdiction of the National 
Government over these lands, with its recognized 
and well-settled machinery for determining all 
questions of title and boundary, and handing them 
over to " the local custom or rules of the miners." 
These " local rules " were to govern the miner in 
the location, extension and boundary of his claim, 
the manner of developing it, and the survey also, 
which was not to be executed with any reference 
to base lines as in the case of other public lands, 
but in utter disregard of the same. The Surveyor 
General was to make a plat or diagram of the 
claim, and transmit it to the Commissioner of the 
General Land Office, who, as the mere agent and 
clerk of the miner, with no judicial authority 
whatever, was required to issue the patent. In 
case of any conflict between claimants it was to be 
determined by the " local courts," without any 
right of appeal to the local land offices, the Gen- 
eral Land Office, or to the Federal courts. The 
Government was thus required to part with its 
lands by proceedings executed by officials wholly 
outside of its jurisdiction, and irresponsible to its 
authority. The act not only abolished our rect- 
angular system of surveys, but still further insulted 
the principles of mathematics and the dictates of 
common sense by providing that the claimant 
should have the right to follow his vein or lode, 
"with its dips, angles and variations to any depth, 
although it may enter the land adjoining, which 



MIXERAL LANDS—PRE-EMPTIOX. 289 



land adjoining shall be sold subject to this condi- 
tion " ; a right unknown to the mining codes of 
England, France or Prussia, and not sanctioned by 
those of Spain or Mexico. Subject to this nov^el 
principle the crudely extemporized rules of the 
miners were to be recognized as law, and this sys- 
tem of instability and uncertainty made the basis of 
title and the arbiter of all disputes, instead of sweep- 
ing it away and ushering in a system of perma- 
nence and peace through the well-appointed agency 
of the Land Department. It was easy to see that 
this was an act to encourage litigation and for the 
benefit of lawyers, and not to promote the real in- 
terest of the miners or increase the product of the 
mines. 

This was made perfectly clear at the time, by 
the report of a Senate committee of the Legisla- 
ture of Nevada. In speaking of the local laws of 
the miners, it says, " There never was confusion 
worse confounded. More than two hundred dis- 
tricts within the limits of a single State, each with 
its self-approved code ; these codes differing not 
alone each from the other, but presenting number- 
less instances of contradiction in themselves. The 
law of one point is not the law of another five 
miles distant, and a little further on will be a code 
which is the law of neither of the former, and "so- 
QX\^ ad infinitum ; ^N\\h. the further disturbing fact 
superadded, that the written laws themselves may 
be overrun by some peculiar custom which can be 
19 



290 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

found nowhere recorded, and the proof of which 
will vary with the volume of interested affidavits 
which may be brought on either side to establish it. 
Again, in one district the work to be done to hold 
a claim is nominal, in another exorbitant, in 
another abolished, in another adjourned from year 
to year. A stranger, seeking to ascertain the 
law, is surprised to learn that there is no satisfac- 
tory public record to which he can refer; no pub- 
lic officer to whom he may apply, who is under any 
bond or obligation to furnish him information, or 
guarantee its authenticity. Often, in the new 
districts, he finds there is not even the semblance 
of a code, but a simple resolution adopting the 
code of some other district, which may be a hun- 
dred miles distant. What guarantee has he for 
the investment of either capital or labor under such 
a system?" The report proceeds to show that 
these regulations can have no permanency. " A 
miner's meeting," it declares, "adopts a code; it 
stands apparently as the law. Some time after, on 
a few days' notice, a corporal's guard assembles, 
and, on simple motion, radically changes the whole 
system by which claims may be held in a district. 
Before a man may traverse the State, the laws of a 
district, which by examination and study he may 
have mastered, may be swept away, and no longer 
stand as the laws which govern the interest he may 
have acquired ; and the change has been one which 
by no reasonable diligence could he be expected 



MINERAL LANDS— PRE-EMPTION. 



igi 



to have knowledge of." Of course these facts thus 
officially stated in the interest of the miners of 
Nevada, were applicable to California, and all the 
mining States and Territories, and they fitly and 
very forcibly rebuked the attempt to enact the Sen- 
ate bill. 

When this bill reached the House it was prop- 
erly referred to the Committee on Public Lands, 
which then had under consideration the bill I had 
reported providing for the survey and sale of mineral 
lands through the regular machinery of the Land 
Department. The House Committee subsequently 
reported it favorabl)^, and could not be persuaded 
by the delegations from California and Nevada to 
adopt the Senate bill as a substitute. Senators 
Stewart and Conness, finding their project thus baf- 
ficd, and becoming impatient of delay as the session 
neared its close, called up a House bill entitled 
*' An Act granting the right of way to ditch and 
canal owners over the Public Lands in the States 
of California, Oregon and Nevada," and succeeded, 
by sharp practice, in carrying a motion to strike 
out the whole of the bill except the enacting 
clause, and insert the bill which the Senate had 
already enacted and was then before the House 
Committee. This maneuver succeeded, and the 
bill, thus enacted by the Senate a second time, and 
now under a false title, was sent to the House, 
where it found its place on the Speaker's table, 
and was lying in wait for the sudden and unlooked- 



292 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

for movement which was to follow. The title was 
misleading, and thus enabled Mr. Ashley of Ne- 
vada, to obtain the floor when it was reached, and 
under the gag", which of course would cut off all 
amendment and debate, he attempted to force 
through a measure revolutionizing the whole land 
policy of the Government so far as relates to the 
Western side of the continent, and surrendering the 
national authority over its vast magazines of min- 
eral wealth to the legalized jargon and bewilder- 
ment I have depicted. I succeeded in preventing 
a vote by carrying an adjournment, but the ques- 
tion came up the next day, and the Senators re- 
ferred to, with their allies in the House, had used 
such marvelous industry in organizing and drilling 
their forces, and the majority of the members knew 
so little about the question involved, that I found 
the chances decidedly against me. I was obliged, 
also, to encounter a prevailing but perfectly un- 
warranted presumption that the representatives of 
the mining States were the best judges of the 
question in dispute, while it was foolishly regarded 
as a local one, with which the old States had no 
concern. The clumsy and next to incomprehensi- 
ble bill thus became a law, and by legislative 
methods as indefensible as the measure itself 

Such is the history of this remarkable experiment 
in legislation ; but it is an experiment no longer. 
Its character has been perfectly established by time, 
and the logic of actual facts. It has been exten- 



MINERAL LANDS— PRE-EMPTION. 293 



sively and thoroughly tried, and after repeated 
attempts to amend it by supplementary legislation, 
its failure stands recorded in the manifold evils it 
has wrought. The Land Commission, appointed 
under the administration of President Hayes in 
pursuance of an Act of Congress to classify the Pub- 
lic Lands and codify the laws relating to their dis- 
position, visited the mining States and Territories 
in detail, and devoted ample time to the examina- 
tion of witnesses and experts in every important 
locality touching the policy and practical operation 
of the laws in force relating to mineral lands. This 
Commission condemned these laws on the strength 
of overwhelming evidence, and recommended a 
thorough and radical reform, including the reference 
of all disputed questions as to title and boundary 
to the regular officials of the United States ; the 
abolition of the " local custom or rules of miners," 
with the " local courts " provided for their adjudica- 
tion ; and the adoption of the United States sur- 
veys as far as practicable, including the geodetical 
principle of ownership in lieu of the policy of 
allowing the miner to follow his vein, ** with its 
dips, angles and variations under the adjoining land 
of his neighbor," which policy is declared to be the 
source of incalculable litigation. The Commission, 
in short, urged the adoption of the principles of the 
Common Law and the employment of the appro- 
priate machinery of the Land Department, as a 
substitute for the frontier regulations which Con- 



294 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

gress made haste to nationalize in 1866. It de- 
clared that under these regulations *' title after 
title hangs on a local record which may be defective, 
mutilated, stolen for blackmail, or destroyed to 
accomplish fraud, and of which the grantor, the 
Government, has neither knowledge nor control "; 
tnat in the evidence taken " it was repeatedly 
shown that two or three prospectors, camped in 
the wilderness, have organized a mining district, 
prescribed regulations involving size of claims, 
mode of location and nature of record, elected one 
of their number recorder, and that officer, on the 
back of an envelope, or on the ace of spades 
grudgingly spared from his pack, can make with 
the stump of a lead pencil an entry that the Govern- 
ment recognizes as the inception of a title which 
may convey millions of dollars ; that even when 
the recorder is duly elected he is not responsible 
to the United States, is neither bonded nor under 
oath, may falsify or destroy his record, may vitiate 
the title to millions of dollars, and snap his fingers 
in the face of the Government; and that our present 
mining law might fitly be entitled " An Act to cause 
the Government to join, upon unknown terms, with 
an unknown second party, to convey to a third 
party an illusory title to an indefinite thing, and 
encourage the subsequent robbery thereof." 

These strong statements are made by a Govern- 
ment commission composed of able and impartial 
men, who were guided in their patient search after 



MINERAL LANDS— PRE-EMPTION. 295 

the truth by the evidence of " a cloud of witnesses," 
who spoke from personal knowledge and experi- 
ence. The character of our mining laws is there- 
fore not a matter of theory, but of demonstrated 
fact. They scourge the mining States and Terri- 
tories with the unspeakable curse of uncertainty 
of land titles, as everywhere attested by incurable 
litigation and strife. They thus undermine the 
morals of the people, and pave the way for vio- 
lence and crime. They cripple a great national 
industry and source of wealth, and insult the prin 
ciples of American jurisprudence. And the mis- 
fortune of this legislation is heightened by the 
probability of its continuance ; for it is not easy to 
uproot a body of laws once accepted by a people, 
however mischievous in their character. Custom, 
and the faculty of adaptation, have a very recon- 
ciling influence upon communities as well as indi- 
viduals. Moreover, men absorbed in a feverish 
and hazardous industry, and stimulated by the hope 
of sudden wealth, are not disposed to consider the 
advantages of permanent ownership and security 
of title. Their business is to make their locations 
according to local custom, and sell out to the 
capitalists ; while the men who feel the burden of 
litigation and the evil of uncertain titles, are not 
the men who control public opinion and influence 
the course of legislation. It may thus happen 
that a system of laws initiated by itinerant miners 
solely for the protection of their transient pos- 



296 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



sessory interests, and carried through Congress 
at their behest by parliamentary roguery, may be 
permanently engrafted upon half the continent. 
If California had been contiguous to the older 
States, and her mining operations had only kept 
pace with the progress of settlements, or if her 
representatives had been less ready to sacrifice the 
enduring interests of their constituents for tempo- 
rary and selfish ends, the wretched travesty of law 
which now afflicts the States and Territories of the 
West would have been unknown, and the same 
code and forms of administration would have pre 
vailed fromi the lakes to the Pacific. 

The lesson of this vital mistake is a pregnant one. 
The laws regulating the ownership and disposition 
of landed property not only affect the well-being 
but frequently the destiny of a people. The system 
of primogeniture and entail adopted by the South- 
ern States of our Union favored the policy of great 
estates, and the ruinous system of landlordism and 
slavery which finally laid waste the fairest and most 
fertile section of the Republic and threatened its 
life ; while the New England States, in adopting a 
different system, laid the foundations of their pros- 
perity in the soil itself, and " took a bond of fate " 
for the welfare of unborn generations. Their polit- 
ical institutions were the logical outcome of their 
laws respecting landed property, which favored a 
great subdivision of the land and great equality 
among the people, thus promoting prosperous cul- 



MINERAL LANDS— PRE-EMPTION. 297 



tI\'ation, compact communities, general education, 
a healthy public opinion, democracy in managing 
the affairs of the church, and that system of local 
self government which has since prevailed over so 
many States. So intimate and vital are the rela- 
tions between a community and the soil it occupies 
that in the nomenclature of politics the word "peo- 
ple" and " land " are convertible terms; but no 
people can prosper under any system of land ten- 
ures which tolerates a vexatious uncertainty of title, 
and thus prompts every man to become the enemy 
of his neighbor in the scuffle for his rights. Such 
a state of affairs is worse than pestilence or famine ; 
but the evil of uncertain titles puts on new and very 
aggravated forms in our gold-bearing regions. The 
business of mining naturally awakens the strongest 
passions. It sharpens the faculties and dulls the 
conscience. It gives to cupidity its keenest edge. 
Its prizes are often rich and suddenly gained, and 
when they are sought through the forms of a law 
which compels a man to choose between an expen- 
sive and hazardous litigation and robbery, human 
nature is severely tried. No situation could well 
be more deplorable than that which obliges a man 
to pay heavy black-mail as the only means of sav- 
ing his property from legal confiscation by another; 
and the moral ravages of a code which allows this 
can not be computed. It tempts civilized men to 
become savages and savages to become devils. It 
is not a mistake merely, but a great misfortune, that 



298 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



our laws touchin;^ so delicate and vital a question as 
the ownership and transfer of mineral lands were 
not so framed as to avert these frightful evils. Sa 
far as the past is concerned they are without rem- 
edy, and there is no positive safeguard for the future 
but in a return to the time-honored principles which 
give to the owner of the surface all that may be 
found within his lines, extended downward verti- 
cally, and refer all disputes to the old-fashioned and 
familiar machinery of the General Land Office. 
This system gave order and peace to the great lead 
and copper regions of the Northwest, and it would 
bring with it the same inestimable blessings to the 
harrassed and sorely tried regions of the Pacific 
slope. 

About the same time the action of Congress sup- 
plied another example of hasty and slip-shod legis- 
lation, which has been perhaps equally prolific of evil. 
The State of California, soon after her admission, 
had assumed the right to dispose of the public 
lands within her borders according to her own pe- 
culiar wishes, and in disregard of the authority of 
the United States. This led to such serious con- 
flicts and complications, that a remedy was sought 
in a bill to quiet land titles in that State. It was a 
very questionable measure, inasmuch as the parties 
claiming title under the State could only be re- 
lieved by recognizing her illegal acts as valid, and 
at the expense of claimants under the laws of the 
United States. It necessarily involved the right of 



MINERAL LANDS— PRE-EMPTION. 



299 



pre-emption, and this was distinctly presented in con- 
nection with what was known as the Suscol Ranch 
in that State. It contained about ninety thousand 
acres, and was covered by an old Spanish grant 
which the Supreme Court of the United States in the 
year 1862 had pronounced void, soon after which 
numerous settlers went upon the land as pre-empt- 
ors, as they had the right to do. Their claims as 
such, being disputed by parties asserting title under 
the void grant, the General Land Office, on the refer- 
ence of the question to that department, decided in 
favor of the pre-emptors, upon which the opposing 
parties procured the submission of the question to 
the Attorney General. That officer gave his opinion 
to the effect that a settler under the pre-emption 
laws acquires no vested interest in the land he 
occupies by virtue of his settlement, and can ac- 
quire no such interest, till he has taken <^// the legal 
steps necessary to perfect an entrance in the Land 
Office, being, in the meantime, a mere tenant-at-will, 
who may be ejected by the Government at any 
moment in favor of another party. In pursuance 
of this opinion scores of bona fide settlers were 
driven from their pre-emptions, which the laws of 
the United States had offered them, on certain pre- 
scribed concHtions, with which they were willing 
and anxious to comply, and their homes, with the 
valuable improvements made upon them in good 
faith, were handed over to speculators and monop- 
olists. The proceeding was as outrageous as the 



300 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

ruling which authorized it was surprising to the 
whole country ; and it naturally awakened uneasi- 
ness and alarm among our pioneer settlers every 
where. It seemed to me very proper, therefore, 
that in a bill to quiet land titles in California, these 
troubles on this Ranch should be settled by a fit- 
ting amendment, which should protect the rights of 
these pre-emptors against the effect of the ruling 
referred to. The opinion of the Attorney General 
had completely overturned the whole policy of the 
Government as popularly understood, and I simply 
proposed to restore it by a proviso guarding the 
rights of boita fide settlers who were claiming title 
under the laws of the United States ; but to my 
perfect amazement I found the California delegation 
bitterly opposed to this amendment. The reading 
of it threw them into a spasm of rage, and showed 
that they were less anxious to quiet titles in their 
State than to serve the monopolies and rings which 
had trampled on the laws of the United States, and 
thus involved themselves in trouble. The zeal and 
industry of the delegation in this opposition could 
only be paralleled by their labors for the passage of 
their mineral land bill ; and the same appeals were 
made in both cases. They said this was a " local 
measure," and that they understood the interests 
of the Pacific coast better than men from the old 
States, while they begged and button-holed mem- 
bers with a pertinacity very rarely witnessed in any 
legislative body. They turned the business of log- 



MINERAL LANDS— PRE-EMPTION. 30 1 

rolling- to such account that the amendment was 
defeated by a strong majority, while it proved the 
entering wedge to other and greater outrages upon 
the rights of settlers which the country has since 
witnessed, and was followed by a decision of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, fully affirm- 
ing the principle laid down in the opinion of the 
Attorney General. This ruling, which has been 
aptly styled " the Dred Scott decision of the 
American Pioneer," has been repeatedly re-affirmed, 
while the claim of pre-emption, once universally 
regarded as a substantial right, has faded away 
into a glamour or myth. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT. 

Gov. Morton and his scheme of Gerrymandering — The XIV 
Amendment — Hasty reconstruction and the Territorial plan — 
The Military Bill — Impeachment — An amusing incident — 
Vote against impeachment — The vote reversed — The popular 
feeling against the President — The trial — Republican intol- 
erance — Injustice to senators and to Chief Justice Chase — 
Nomination of Gen. Grant — Re-nomination for Congress — 
Personal — Squabble of place-hunters — XVI Amendment. 

The fall elections of this year were complicated 
by the hostile influence of the Executive, but the 
popular current was strongly on the side of Con- 
gress. A few prominent Republican members 
followed the President, but the great body of them 
stood firm. In my own Congressional district my 
majority was over 6,200, notwithstanding the 
formidable conservative opposition in my own 
party, and its extraordinary efforts to divide the 
Republicans through the patronage of the Admin- 
istration. Nearly all of my old opponents in the 
district and State were now Johnsonized, except 
Gov. Morton, whose temporary desertion the year 
before was atoned for by a prudent and timely re- 
pentance. He was not, however, thoroughly 
{302) 



RE CONS TR UCTION AND IMPEA CHMENT. 303 

reconstructed ; for in the Philadelphia Loyal 
Convention which met in September of this year 
to consider the critical state of the country, he used 
his influence with the delegates from the South to 
prevent their espousal of Negro Suffrage, and 
begged Theodore Tilton to prevail on Frederick 
Douglass to take the first train of cars for home, in 
order to save the Republican party from detri- 
ment He was still under the shadow of his early 
Democratic training ; and he and his satellites, 
vividly remembering my campaign for Negro Suf- 
frage the year before, and finding me thoroughly 
intrenched in my Congressional district, hit upon 
a new project for my political discomfiture. This 
was the re-districting of the State at the ensuing 
session of the Indiana Legislature, which they 
succeeded in accomplishing by disguising their real 
purpose. There was neither reason nor excuse for 
such a scheme at this time, apart from my polit- 
ical fortunes ; and by the most shameless Gerry- 
mandering three counties of my district, which 
gave me a majority of 5,000, were taken from me, 
and four others added in which I was personally 
but little acquainted, and which gave an aggre- 
gate Democratic majority of about 1,500. This 
was preliminary to the next Congressional race, and 
the success of the enterprise remained to be tested; 
but it furnished a curious illustration of the state 
of Indiana Republicanism at that time. 

On the meeting of Congress in December the 



304 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

signs of political progress since the adjournment 
were quite noticeable. The subject of impeachment 
began to be talked about, and both houses seemed 
ready for all necessary measures. Since mingling 
freely with their constituents, very few Republican 
members insisted that the XIV Constitutional 
Amendment should be accepted as a finality, or as 
an adequate solution of the problem of reconstruc- 
tion. The second section of that amendment, pro- 
posing to abandon the colored race in the South 
on condition that they should not be counted in 
the basis of representation, was now generally con- 
demned, and if the question had been a new one it 
could not have been adopted. This enlightenment 
of Northern representatives was largely due to the 
prompt and contemptuous rejection by the rebell- 
ious States of the XIV Amendment as a scheme of 
reconstruction, and their enactment of black codes 
which made the condition of the freedmen more de- 
plorable than slavery itself. In this instance, as in 
that of Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipa- 
tion, it was rebel desperation which saved the negro ; 
for if the XIV Amendment had been at first accept- 
ed, the work of reconstruction would have ended 
without conferring upon him the ballot. This will 
scarcely be denied by any one, and has been frankly 
admitted by some of the most distinguished lead- 
ers of the party. 

The policy of treating these States as Territories 
seemed now to be rapidly gaining ground, and com- 



KECOXSTRUCriON AXD IMPEACIIMEXT. 305 



mended itself as the only logical way out of the 
political dilemma in which the Government was 
placed. But here again the old strife between 
radicalism and conservatism cropped out. The 
former opposed all haste in the work of reconstruc- 
tion. It insisted that what the rebellious districts 
needed was not an easy and speedy return to the 
places they had lost by their treasonable conspiracy, 
but a probationary training, looking to their res- 
toration when they should prove their fitness for 
civil government as independent States. It was in- 
sisted that they were not prepared for this, and that 
with their large population of ignorant negroes and 
equally ignorant whites, dominated by a formidable 
oligarchy of educated land-owners who despised 
the power that had conquered them, while they 
still had the sympathy of their old allies in the 
North, the withdrawal of Federal intervention and 
the unhindered operation of local supremacy would 
as fatally hedge up the way of justice and equal- 
ity as the rebel despotisms then existing. The 
political and social forces of Southern society, if un- 
checked from without, were sure to assert them- 
selves, and the more decided anti-slavery men in 
both houses of Congress so warned the country, and 
foretold that no theories of Democracy could avail 
unless adequately supported by a healthy and in- 
telligent public opinion. They saw that States must 
grow, and could not be suddenly constructed where 
the materials were wanting, and that forms are 
20 



306 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

worthless in the hands of an ignorant mob. It was 
objected to the territorial theory that it was arbi- 
trary, and would lead to corruption and tyranny 
like the pro-consular system of Rome ; but it was 
simply the territorial system to which we had been 
accustomed from the beginning of the Government, 
and could not prove worse than the hasty re-admis- 
sion of ten conquered districts to the dignity of 
States of the Union, involving, as it has done, the 
horrors of carpet-bag government, Ku Klux out- 
rages, and a system of pro-consular tyranny as in- 
consistent with the rights of these States as it has 
been disgraceful to the very idea of free government 
and fatal to the best interests of the colored race. 

But the strange chaos of opinion which now pre- 
vailed was unfavorable to sound thinking or wise 
acting. Great and far-reaching interests were at 
stake, but they were made the sport of politicians, 
and disposed of in the light of their supposed 
effect upon the ascendancy of the Republican 
party. Statesmanship was sacrificed to party man- 
agement, and the final result was that the various 
territorial bills which had been introduced in both 
Houses, and the somewhat incongruous bills of 
Stevens and Ashley, were all superseded by the 
passage of the " Military bill," which was vetoed 
by the President, but re-enacted in the face of his 
objections. This bill was utterly indefensible on 
principle. It was completely at war with the 
genius and spirit of democratic government. In- 



RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT. 307 

Stead of furnishing the Rebel districts with civil 
governments, and providing for a military force 
adequate to sustain them, it abolished civil govern- 
ment entirely, and installed the army in its place. 
It was a confession of Congressional incompetence 
to deal with a problem which Congress alone had 
the right to solve. Its provisions perfectly ex- 
posed it to all the objections which could be urged 
to the plan of territorial reconstruction, while they 
inaugurated a centralized military despotism in the 
place of that system of well-understood local self- 
government which the territorial policy offered as 
a preparation for restoration. The measure was 
analyzed and exposed with great ability by Henry 
J. Raymond, whose arguments were unanswered 
and unanswerable ; but nothing could stay the pre- 
vailing impatience of Congress for speedy legisla- 
tion looking to the early return of the rebel 
districts to their places in the Union. The bill 
was a legislative solecism. It did not abrogate 
the existing Rebel State governments. It left the 
ballot in the hands of white Rebels, and did not 
confer it upon the black loyalists. It sought to 
conciliate the power it was endeavoring to coerce. 
It provided for negro suffrage as one of the funda- 
mental conditions on which the rebellious States 
should be restored to their places in the Union, but 
left the negro to the mercy of their black codes, 
pending the decision of the question of their ac- 
ceptance of the proposed conditions of restoration. 



308 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

The freedmen were completely in the power of 
their old masters, so long as the latter might refuse 
the term.s of reconstruction that were offered ; and 
they had the option to refuse them entirely, if they 
saw fit to prefer their own mad ascendancy and its 
train of disorders to compulsory restoration. This 
perfectly inexcusable abandonment of negro suf- 
frage was zealously defended by a small body of 
conservative Republicans who were still lingering 
in the sunshine of executive favor, and of whom 
Mr. Blaine was the chief; and it was through the 
timely action of Mr. Shellabarger, of Ohio, which 
these conservatives opposed, that the scheme of 
reconstruction was finally so amended as to make 
the Rebel State governments provisional only, and 
secure the ballot to the negro during the period, 
whether long or short, which might intervene 
prior to the work of re-admission. This provision 
was absolutely vital, because it took from the people 
of the insurrectionary districts every motive for 
refusing the acceptance of the terms proposed, 
and settled the work of reconstruction by this 
exercise of absolute power by their conquerors. 
It was this provision which secured the support 
of the Radical Republicans in Congress ; but it 
did not meet their objections to this scheme of 
hasty military reconstruction, while these objec- 
tions have been amply justified by time. 
VThaddeus Stevens never appeared to such splen- 
did advantage as a parliamentary leader as in this 



RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT. 309 

protracted debate on reconstruction. He was then 
nearly seventy-six, and was physically so feeble 
that he could scarcely stand; but his intellectual 
resources seemed to be perfectly unimpaired. 
Eloquence, irony, wit, and invective, were charm- 
ingly blended in the defense of his positions and 
his attacks upon his opponents. In dealing with 
the views of Bingham, Blaine, and Banks, he was 
by no means complimentary. He referred to them 
in his closing speech on the bill, on the thirteenth 
of February, when he said, in response to an inter- 
ruption by Mr. Blaine, " What I am speaking of is 
this proposed step toward universal amnesty and 
universal Andy-Johnsonism, If this Congress so 
decides, it will give me great pleasure to join in the 
io triumphe of the gentleman from Ohio in leading 
this House, possibly by forbidden paths, into the 
sheep-fold or the goat-fold of the President." In 
speaking of the amendment to the bill offered by 
General Banks, he said, " It proposes to set up a 
contrivance at the mouth of the Mississippi, and by 
hydraulic action to control all the States that are 
washed by the waters of that great stream." He 
declared that, " The amendment of the gentleman 
from Maine lets in a vast number of Rebels, and 
shuts out nobody. All I ask is that when the 
House comes to vote upon that amendment, it shall 
understand that the adoption of it would be an en- 
tire surrender of those States into the hands of the 
Rebels. "^ * If, sir, I might presume upon 



310 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

my age, without claiming any of the wisdom of 
Nestor, I would suggest to the young gentlemen 
around me, that the deeds of this burning crisis, 
of this solemn day, of this thrilling moment, will 
cast their shadows far into the future, and will 
make their impress upon the annals of our history; 
and that we shall appear upon the bright pages of 
that history just in so far as we cordially, without 
guile, without bickering, without small criticisms, 
lend our aid to promote the great cause of human- 
ity and universal liberty." 

As a precautionary measure against executive 
usurpation, the Fortieth Congress was organized 
'in March, 1867, immediately after the adjournment 
of the Thirty-ninth. After a brief session it ad- 
journed till the third of July, to await the further 
progress of events. On re-assembling I found the 
feeling in favor of impeachment had considerably 
increased, but was not yet strong enough to pre- 
vail. All that could be done was the passage of a 
supplemental act on the subject of reconstruction, 
which naturally provoked another veto, in which 
the President re-affirmed the points of his message 
vetoing the original bill, and arraigned the action 
of Congress as high-handed and despotic. The 
message was construed by the Republicans as an 
open defiance, and many of them felt that a great 
duty had been slighted in failing to impeach him 
months before. The feeling against him became 
perfectly relentless, as I distinctly remember it, and 



RE CONSTR UCTION AND IMPEA CHMENT. 3 i i 

shared in it myself; but on referring to the message 
now, I am astonished at the comparative modera- 
tion of, its tone, and the strength of its positions. 
Its logic, in the main, is impregnable, if it be 
granted that the Rebel districts were not only- 
States, but States in the Union, and the Congress 
which was now so enraged at the President had 
itself refused to deal with them as Territories or 
outlying provinces, and thereby invited the aggra- 
vating thrusts of the message at the consistency of 
his assailants. 

Just before the adjournment of this brief ses- 
sion of Congress, an amusing incident occurred in 
connection with the introduction of the following 
resolution in the House: 

''Resolved, That the doctrines avowed by the 
President of the United States, in his message to 
Congress of the fifteenth instant, to the effect that 
the abrogation of the governments of the Rebel 
States binds the Nation to pay the debts incurred 
prior to the late Rebellion, is at war with the prin- 
ciples of international law, a deliberate stab at the 
national credit, abhorrent to every sentiment of 
loyalty, and well-pleasing only to the vanquished 
traitors by whose agency alone the governments 
of said States were overthrown and destroyed." 

The resolution was adopted by yeas one hun- 
dred, nays eighteen, and the announcement of the 
vote provoked the laughter of both sides of the 
House. It gratified the Republicans, because it 



312 roLiriCAL recollections. 

was a thrust at Andrew Johnson, and perfectly ac- 
corded with their prevailing political mood, which 
was constantly becoming more embittered toward 
him. It equally gratified the Democrats, because 
they at once accepted it as ^ telling shot at Gov. 
]\Iorton, who had fathered the condemned heresy 
nearly two years before in his famous Richmond 
speech, which he and his friends had been doing 
their best to forget. Party feeling had never be- 
fore been more intense ; but this resolution per- 
formed its mediatorial office with such magical 
effect in playing with two utterly diverse party 
animosities, that Republicans and Democrats were 
alike surprised to find themselves suddenly stand- 
ing on common ground, and joyfully shaking 
hands in token of this remarkable display of their 
good fellowship. 

Congress assembled again on the twenty-first of 
November, in consequence of the extraordinary 
conduct of the President. The popular feeling in 
favor of impeachment had now become formidable, 
and on the twenty-fifth the Judiciary Committee of 
the House finalh^ reported in favor of the measure. 
The galleries were packed, and the scene was one 
of great interest, while all the indications seemed 
to point to success; but on the seventh of Decem- 
ber, the proposition was voted down by yeas fifty- 
seven, nays one hundred and eight. The vote was 
a great surprise and disappointment to the friends 
of impeachment, and was construed by them as a 



RE CONS TR UC TION A ND IMFEA C II ME NT. 3 i 3 

wanton surrender by Congress, and the prelude to 
new acts of executive lawlessness. These acts 
continued to be multiplied, and the removal of 
Secretary StcUiton finally so prepared the way 
that on the twenty-fourth of February, 1868, the 
House, by a vote of one hundred and twenty-six 
to forty-seven, declared in favor of impeachment. 
Tlie crowds in the galleries, in the lobbies, and 
on the floor were unprecedented, and the excite- 
ment at high tide. The fifty- seven Vv'ho had voted 
for impeachment in December, were now happy. 
They felt, at last, that the country was safe. The 
whole land seemed to be electrified, as they be- 
lieved it would have been at any previous time if 
the House had had the nerve to go forward ; and 
they rejoiced that the madness of Johnson had at 
last compelled Congress to face the great duty. 'A 
committee of seven was appointed by the Speaker 
to prepare articles of impeachment, of whom 
Thaddeus Stevens was chairman. He was now 
rapidly failing in strength, and every morning had 
to be carried up stairs to his seat in the House ; 
but his humor never failed him, and on one of these 
occasions he said to the young men v/ho had him 
in charge, " I wonder, boys, who will carry mc 
when you are dead and gone." He was very thin, 
pale and haggard. His eye was bright, but his 
face was "scarred by the crooked autograph of pain." 
He was a constant sufferer, and during the sessions 
of the Committee kept himself stimulated by sipping 



314 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

a little wine or brandy; but he was its ruling 
spirit, and greatly speeded its work by the clearness 
of his perceptions and the strength of his will. His 
mental force seemed to defy the power of disease. 
The articles of impeachment were ready for sub- 
mission in a few days, and adopted by the House, 
on the second of March, by a majority of consider- 
ably more than two thirds, when the case was 
transferred to the Senate. 

AThe popular feeling against the President was 
now rapidly nearing its climax and becoming a 
sort of frenzy. Andrew Johnson was no longer 
merely a "wrong-headed and obstinate man," but 
a "genius in depravity," whose hoarded malignity 
and passion were unfathomable. He was not simply 
" an irresolute mule," as General Schenck had styled 
him, but was devil-bent upon the ruin of his coun- 
try; and his trial connected itself with all the mem- 
ories of the war, and involved the Nation in a new 
and final struggle for its life. Even so sober and 
unimaginative a man as Mr. Boutwell, one of the 
managers of the impeachment in the Senate, lost his 
wits and completely surrendered himself to the 
passions of the hour in the following passage of his 
speech in that body : 

" Travelers and astronomers inform us that in the 
Southern heavens, near the Southern Cross, there 
is a vast space which the uneducated call the * hole 
in the sky,' where the eye of man, with the aid of 
the powers of the telescope, has been unable to dis- 



RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT, 315 

cover nebulae, or asteroid, or comet, or planet, or 
star or sun. In that dreary, cold, dark region of 
space, which is only known to be less than infinite 
by the evidences of creation elsewhere, the great 
Author of celestial mechanism has left the chaos 
which was in the beginning. If this earth were 
capable of the sentiments and emotions of justice 
and virtue, which in human mortal beings are the 
evidences and the pledge of our divine origin and 
immortal destiny, it would heave and throe with 
the energy of the elemental forces of nature, 
and project this enemy of two races of men into 
that vast region, there forever to exist, in a soli- 
tude eternal as life, or as the absence of life, 
emblematical of, if not really, that 'outer dark- 
ness ' of which the Savior of man spoke in warning 
to those who are the enemies of themselves, of 
their race, and of their God." 

This fearful discharge of rhetorical fireworks at 
the President fitly voiced the general sentiment of 
the Republicans. Party madness was in the air, 
and quite naturally gave birth to the " hole in the 
sky " in the agony of its effort to find expression. 
No extravagance of speech or explosion of wrath 
was deemed out of order during this strange dis- 
pensation in our politics. 

The trial proceeded with unabated interest, and 
on the afternoon of the eleventh of May the excite- 
ment reached its highest point. Reports came 
from the Senate, then in secret session, that Grimes,. 



3l6 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

Fessenden and Henderson were certainly for ac- 
quittal, and that other senators were to follow 
them. An indescribable gloom now prevailed 
among the friends of impeachment, which increased 
•during the afternoon, and at night when the Senate 
was again in session. At the adjournment there 
was some hope of conviction, but it was generally 
•considered very doubtful. On meeting my old 
anti-slavery friend, Dr. Brisbane, he told me he 
felt as if he were sitting up with a sick friend who 
was expected to die. His face was the picture of 
despair. To such men it seemed that all the trials 
of the war were merged in this grand issue, and 
that it involved the existence of Free Government 
on this continent. The final vote was postponed 
till the sixteenth, owing to Senator Howard's ill- 
ness, -and on the morning of that day the friends 
of impeachment felt more confident. The vote 
was first taken on the eleventh article. The gal- 
leries were packed, and an indescribable anxiety 
was written on every face. Some of the mem- 
bers of the House near me grew pale and sick 
under the burden of suspense. Such stillness 
prevailed that the breathing in the galleries' could 
be heard at the announcement of each senator's 
vote. This was quite noticeable when any of the 
doubtful senators voted, the people holding their 
breath as the words " guilty" or " not guilty " were 
pronounced, and then giving it simultaneous vent. 
Every heart throbbed more anxiously as the name 



RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT. 317 

of Senator Fowler was reached, and the Chief 
Justice propounded to him the prescribed ques- 
tion : " How say you, is the respondent, Andrew 
Johnson, President of the United States, guilty or 
not guilty of a high misdemeanor, as charged in 
this article of impeachment ?" The senator, in evi- 
dent excitement, inadvertently answered " guilty," 
and thus lent a momentary relief to the friends of 
impeachment; but this was immediately dissipated 
by correcting his vote on the statement of the Chief 
Justice that he did not understand the senator's 
response to the question. Nearly all hope of con- 
viction fled when Senator Ross, of Kansas, voted 
" not guilty," and a long breathing of disappoint- 
ment and despair followed the like vote of Van 
Winkle, which settled the case in favor of the 
President. 

It is impossible now to realize how perfectly over- 
mastering was the excitement of these days. The 
exercise of calm judgment was simply out of the 
question. As I have already stated, passion ruled 
the hour, and constantly strengthened the tendency 
to one-sidedness and exaggeration. The attempt to 
impeach the President was undoubtedly inspired, 
mainly, by patriotic motives ; but the spirit of intol- 
erance among Republicans toward those who 
differed with them in opinion set all moderation and 
common sense at defiance. Patriotism and party 
animosity were so inextricably mingled and con- 
founded that the real merits of the controversy 



3l8 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

could only be seen after the heat and turmoil of the 
strife had passed away. Time has made this mani- 
fest. Andrew Johnson was not the Devil-incarnate 
he was then painted, nor did he monopolize, en- 
tirely, the " wrong-headedness " of the times. No 
one will now^ dispute that the popular estimate of 
his character did him very great injustice. It is 
equally certain that great injustice was done to 
Trumbull, Fessenden, Grimes and other senators 
who voted to acquit the President, and gave proof 
of their honesty and independence by facing the 
wrath and scorn of the party with which they had 
so long been identified. The idea of making the 
question of impeachment a matter of party disci- 
pline was utterly indefensible and preposterous. 
*' Those senators," as Horace Greeley declared, 
^' were sublimely in the right who maintained their 
independent judgment — whether it was correct or 
erroneous, in a matter of this kind, and who indig- 
nantly refused all attempts to swerve them from 
their duty as they had undertaken to perform it by 
.solemn oaths." The Chief Justice was also cruelly 
and inexcusably wronged by imputing corrupt mo- 
tives to his official action. His integrity and courage 
had been amply demonstrated through many long 
years of thorough and severe trial ; and yet many 
of his Republican friends, both in the Senate and 
House, who had known him throughout his polit- 
ical career, denounced him as an apostate and a 
traitor, and even denied him all social recognition. 



RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT. 319 

Senator Howe, of Wisconsin, was especially abusive, 
and made himself perfectly ridiculous by the ex- 
travagance and malignity of his assaults. The 
judicial spirit was everywhere wanting, and the 
elevation of Senator Wade to the Presidenc}^ in the 
midst of so much passion and turhult, and with the 
peculiar political surroundings which the event fore- 
shadowed, would have been, to say the least, a very 
questionable experiment for the country. 

The excitement attending the trial of the Presi- 
dent soon subsided, but the Republicans continued 
anxious about the state of the country. The work 
of reconstruction was only fairly begun, and its 
completion was involved in the approaching presi- 
dential election. Chase and Seward had lost their 
standing in the party, and there was no longer any 
civilian in its ranks whose popularity was especially 
commanding or at all over-shadowing. Under 
these circumstances it was quite natural to turn to 
the army, and to canvass the claims of Gen. Grant. 
The idea of his nomination was exceedingly dis- 
tasteful to me. I personally knew him to be in- 
temperate. In politics he was a Democrat. He did 
not profess to be a Republican, and the only vote 
he had ever given was cast for James Buchanan in 
1856, when the Republican party made its first 
grand struggle to rescue the Government from the 
clutches of slavery. Moreover, he had had no 
training whatever in civil administration, and no one 
thought of him as a statesman. But the plea of his 



320 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



availability as a military chieftain was urged with 
great effect, and was made irresistible by the appre- 
hension that if not nominated by the Republicans 
the Democrats would appropriate him, and make 
him a formidable instrument of mischief. His nom- 
ination, however, was only secured by cautious and 
timely diplomacy, and potent appeals to his sordid- 
ness, in the shape of assurances that he should have 
the office for a second term. But as the nominee 
of his party, fairly committed to its principles and 
measures touching the unsettled questions of re- 
construction and suffrage, I saw no other practica- 
ble alternative than to give him my support. I 
was still further reconciled to this by the action of 
the Democrats in the nomination of Seymour and 
Blair, and the avowal of the latter in his famous 
" Broadhead letter," that " we must have a Presi- 
dent who will execute the will of the people by 
trampling in the dust the usurpations of Congress 
known as the Reconstruction Acts." 

In my new Congressional district I was unani- 
mously re-nominated by the Republicans, and en- 
tered at once upon the canvass, though scarcely 
well enough to leave my bed. The issue was doubt ■ 
ful, and my old-time enemies put forth their whole 
power against me at the election. They were de- 
termined, this time, to win, and to make sure of 
this they embarked in a desperate and shameless 
scheme of ballot-stuffing in the city of Richmond, 
which was afterward fully exposed; but in spite of 



Rl'XO.YSTRUCTION AXD IMPEACHMENT. 321 



this enterprise of " Ku Klux Republicans," I was 
elected by a small majority. The result, however, 
foreshadowed the close of my con^^ressional labors, 
which followed two years later, just as the XV Con- 
stitutional Amendment had made voters of the 
colored men of the State ; but it was only made 
possible by my failing health, which had unfitted 
me for active leadership. In my old district I had 
made myself absolutely invincible. For twenty- 
one years in succession, that is to say, from the 
year 184S to the year 1868, both inclusive, I can- 
vassed that district by townships and neighbor- 
hoods annually on the stump. In the beginning, 
public opinion was overwhelmingly and fiercely 
against me, but I resolved, at whatever cost, to re- 
construct it in conformity with my own earnest con- 
victions. I literally wore myself out in the work, 
and am perfectly amazed when I recall the amount 
of it I performed, and the complete abandon of my- 
self to the task. From the beginning to the end of 
this struggle the politicians of the district were 
against me, and they were numerous and formida- 
ble, and in every contest were reinforced by the 
politicians of the State. Although the ranks of my 
supporters were constantly recruited and no man 
ever had more devoted friends, I was obliged, during 
all these years, to stand alone as the champion of 
my cause in debate. I believe no Congressional 
district in the Union was ever the theatre of so 
much hard toil by a single man ; but although it in- 
21 



322 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



volved the serious abridgement of health and life, 
the ruinous neglect of my private affairs, and the 
sacrifice of many precious friendships, I was not 
without my reward. I succeeded in my work. 
Step by step I saw my constituents march up to 
my position, and the district at last completely dis- 
enthralled by the ceaseless and faithful administra- 
tion of anti-slavery truth. The tables were com- 
pletely turned. Almost everybody was an Abo- 
litionist, and nobody any longer made a business of 
swearing that he was not. In canvassing my dis- 
trict it became the regular order of business for a 
caravan of candidates for minor offices, who were 
sportively called the " side show," to follow me 
from point to point, all vieing with each other as 
to which had served longest and most faithfully as 
my friends. They had always been opposed to 
slavery, and men who had taken the lead in mob- 
bing Abolitionists in earlier days and gained a live- 
lihood by slave-catching, were now active and 
zealous leaders in the Republican party. It was a 
marvelous change. Slavery itself, greatly to the 
surprise and delight of its enemies, had perished; 
but it was, after all, only one form of a world-wide 
evil. The abolition of the chattel slavery of the 
Southern negro was simply the introduction and 
prelude to the emancipation of all races from all 
forms of servitude, and my Congressional record 
had been a practical illustration of my faith in this 
truth. The rights of man are sacred, whether 



RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT. 323 

trampled down by Southern slave-drivers, the 
monopolists of the soil, the grinding power of cor- 
porate wealth, the legalized robbery of a protective 
tariff, or the power of concentrated capital in alli- 
ance Avith labor-saving machinery. 

During the winter preceding the inauguration of 
the President I was besieged by place-hunters more 
than ever before. They thronged about me con- 
stantly, while I generally wrote from twenty to 
thii:ty letters per day in response to inquiries about 
appointments from my district. The squabbles over 
post-office appointments were by far the most vex- 
atious and unmanageable. They were singularly 
fierce, and I found it wholly impossible to avoid 
making enemies of men who had supported me 
with zeal. I was tormented for months about the 
post-office of a single small town in Franklin 
county, where the rival parties pounced upon each 
other like cannibals, and divided the whole com- 
munity into two hostile camps. I was obliged to 
give my days and nights to this wretched business, 
and often received only curses for the sincerest en- 
deavors to do what I believed was right. This 
experience became absolutely sickening, and could 
not be otherwise than seriously damaging to me 
politically. Such matters were wholly foreign to 
the business of legislation, and I wrote a very 
earnest letter to Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island, 
heartily commending his measure proposed in the 
preceding Congress for the reform of our Civil 



324 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

Service, and for which, as the real pioneer of this 
movement, he deserves a monument 

It was on the eighth of December, 1868, that I 
submitted a proposed amendment to the Constitu- 
tion, declaring that " the right of suffrage in the 
United States shall be based upon citizenship, and 
shall be regulated by Congress " ; and that " all 
citizens of the United States, whether native or 
naturalized, shall enjoy this right equally, without 
any distinction or discrimination whatever founded 
on race, color, or sex. This was prior to the 
ratification of the XV Amendment, and I so num- 
bered the proposition : but on further reflection 
I preferred an amendment in the exact form of the 
fifteenth, and early in the next Congress I submit- 
ted it, being the first proposition offered for a six- 
teenth amendment to the Constitution. My opin- 
ions about woman suffrage, however, date much 
farther back. The subject was first brought to my 
attention in a brief chapter on the "political non- 
existence of woman," in Miss Martineau's book on 
" Society in America," which I read in 1847. She 
there pithily states the substance of all that has since 
been said respecting the logic of woman's right to 
the ballot, and finding myself unable to answer it, 
I accepted it. On recently referring to this chap- 
ter I find myself more impressed by its force than 
when I first read it. " The most principled Demo- 
cratic writers on Government," she said, " have on 
this subject sunk into fallacies as disgraceful a 



RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT. 325 

any advocate of despotism has adduced. In fact, 
they have thus sunk, from being, for the moment, 
advocates of despotism. Jefferson in America, and 
James Mill at home, subside, for the occasion, to 
the level of the Emperor of Russia's catechism 
for the young Poles." This she makes unanswer- 
ably clear; but my interest in the slavery question 
was awakened about the same time. I regarded it 
as the previous question, and as less abstract and 
far more immediately important and absorbing 
than that of suffrage for woman. For the sake 
of the negro I accepted Mr. Lincoln's philosophy 
of " one war at a time," though always ready to 
show my hand ; but when this was fairly out of the 
way, I was prepared to enlist actively in the next 
grand movement in behalf of the sacredness and 
equality of human rights. 



CHAPTER XV. 



GRANT AND GREELEY. 



The new Cabinet — Seeds of party disaffection — Trip to California 
— Party degeneracy — The liberal Republican movement — Re- 
nomination of Grant — The Cincinnati convention — Perplexities 
of the situation — The canvass for Greeley — Its bitterness — Its 
peculiar features — The defeat — The vindication of Liberals — 
Visit to Chase and Sumner — Death of Greeley. 

The inaugural speech of Gen. Grant was a feeble 
performance, and very unsatisfactory to his friends. 
When he announced his Cabinet, disappointment 
was universal among Republicans, and was greatly 
increased when he asked Congress to relieve A. T. 
Stewart, his nominee for Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, from the disability wisely imposed by the Act 
of Congress of 1789, forbidding the appointment 
to that position of any one engaged " in carrying 
on the business or trade of commerce." Senator 
Sherman at once introduced a bill to repeal this 
enactment, but Mr. Sumner vigorously opposed 
the measure, and the President soon afterward sent 
a message to the Senate asking leave to withdraw 
his request as to Mr. Stewart. It was doubtless 
the prompt and decided stand taken by Mr. Sum- 
ner in this matter which laid the foundation for the 

(326) 



GRANT AND GREELEY. 327 



President's personal hostility to him, which so re- 
markably developed itself during the following 
years. The seeds of a party feud were thus plant- 
ed, and as the Administration continued to show 
its hand, bore witness to a vigorous growth. 

In June of this year I made a trip to California 
in search of health, which I had lost through over- 
work, and was now paying the penalty in a very 
distressing form of insomnia. I took one of the 
first through trains to the Pacific, and on reaching 
the State, I found sight-seeing and travel so irre- 
sistible a temptation, that I lost the rest and quiet 
I so absolutely needed. I was constantly on the 
wing ; and I encountered at every point, the ** set- 
tler," who was anxious to talk over the land squab- 
bles of the State, with which I had had much to do 
in Congress, but now needed for a season to for- 
get. I found that the half had not been told me 
respecting the ravages of land-grabbing under the 
Swamp Land Act of 1850, and the mal-administra- 
tion of Mexican and Spanish grants. I was full of 
the subject, and was obliged, also, to give particular 
attention to the pre-emption of J. M. Hutchings, 
in the Yosemite Valley, for the protection of which 
I had reported a bill which was then pending ; and 
I came near losing my life in the valley through 
the fatigue I suffered in reaching it. After a stay 
of over two months in California, and a trip by 
steamer to Oregon and Washington Territory, I 
returned home early in September, but in no better 



328 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



health than when I left; and a like experience at- 
tended a journey to Minnesota soon afterward, 
where I was captured by leading railroad men who 
belabored me over the land-grant to the St. Croix 
and Bayfield railroad, the revival of which I had 
aided in defeating at the previous session of Con- 
gress. 

I returned to Washington in December, but 
physically unfit for labor, spending most of the 
session in New York under the care of a physi- 
cian. I deeply regretted this, for the railway lobby 
was in Washington in full force, as it was during 
the closing session of the Forty-first Congress, 
when I was equally unfit for business. I was not, 
however, without consolation. Under the popular 
reaction against the Land-grant system which I 
had done my part to create, the huge pile of land 
bills on the Speaker's table failed, save the Texas 
Pacific project, which was carried by the most 
questionable methods, and against such a general 
protest as clearly indicated the end of this policy. 
A vote of nearly two to one was carried in the 
House in favor of a bill reported by the Land Com- 
mittee defining swamp and overflowed lands, and 
guarding against the enormous swindles that had 
disgraced the Land Department and afflicted 
honest settlers. A like vote was secured in favor 
of the bill to prevent the further disposition of the 
public lands save under the pre-emption and home- 
stead laws, for which I had labored for years 



GRAXT AND GREELEY. 329 

Many thousands of acres had been saved from the 
clutches of monopoHsts by attaching- to several 
important grants the condition that the lands 
should be sold only to actual settlers, in quantities 
not exceeding a quarter section, and for not more 
than two dollars and fifty cents per acre. A very 
important reform, already referred to, had been 
made in our Indian treaty policy, by which lands 
relinquished by any tribe would henceforth fall 
under the operation of our land laws, instead of 
being sold in a body to some corporation or indi- 
vidual monopolist. The Southern Homestead law 
had dedicated to actual settlement millions of acres 
of the public domain in the land States of the South, 
while the Homestead Act of 1862 was splendidly 
vindicating the wisdom of its policy. Congress 
had declared forfeited and open to settlenient a 
large grant of lands in Louisiana for non-compli- 
ance with the conditions on which it was made, 
andthepublic domain had been saved from frightful 
spoliation by the fortunate defeat of a scheme of 
land bounties that would completely have over- 
turned the policy of the pre-emption and home- 
stead laws, while practically mocking the claims 
of the soldiers. The opportunity, now and then, 
to strangle a legislative monster like this, or to fur- 
ther the passage of beneficent and far-reaching 
measures, is one of the real compensations of public 
life. 

The final ratification of the Fifteenth Constitu- 



330 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

tional Amendment, which was declared in force on 
the thirtieth of March, 1870, perfectly consummated 
the mission of the Republican party, and left its 
menibers untrammeled in dealing with new ques- 
tions. ' In fact, the Republican movement in the 
begiiining was a political combination, rather than 
a party. Its action was inspired less by a creed 
than an object, and that object was to dedicate our 
National Territories to freedom, and denationalize 
slavery. Aside from this object, the members of 
the combination were hopelessly divided. The or- 
ganization was created to deal with this single ques- 
tion, and would not have existed without it. It was 
now regarded by many as a spent political force, 
although it had received a momentum which threat- 
ened to outlast its mission ; and if it did not keep 
the promise made in its platform of 1868, to reform 
the corruptions of the preceding Administration, 
and at the same time manfully wrestle with the 
new problems of the time, it was morally certain to 
degenerate into a faction, led by base men, and 
held together by artful appeals to the memories of 
the past Our tariff legislation called for a thor- 
ough revision. Our Civil Service was becoming a 
system of political prostitution. Roguery and 
plunder, born of the multiplied temptations which 
the war furnished, had stealthily crept into the 
management of public affairs, and claimed immu- 
nity from the right of search. What the country 
needed was not a stricter enforcement of party dis- 



GRANT AND GREELEY. 331 

cipline, not military methods and the fostering of 
sectional hate, but oblivion of the past, and an 
earnest, intelligent, and catholic endeavor to grap- 
ple with questions of practical administration. 

But this, in the very nature of the case, was not 
to be expected. The men who agreed to stand 
together in 1856, on a question which was now 
out of the way, and had postponed their differences 
on current party questions for that purpose, were 
comparatively unfitted for the task of civil admin- 
istration in a time of peace. They had had no 
preparatory training, and the engrossing struggle 
through which they had passed had, in fact, dis- 
qualified them for the work. While the issues of 
the war were retreating into the past the mercenary 
element of Republicanism had gradually secured 
the ascendancy, and completely appropriated the 
President. The mischiefs of war had crept into 
the conduct of civil affairs, and a thorough school- 
ing of the party in the use of power had famil- 
iarized it with military ideas and habits, and 
committed it to loose and indefensible opinions 
respecting the powers of the General Government. 
The management of the Civil Service was an utter 
mockery of political decency, while the animosities 
engendered by the war were nursed and coddled 
as the appointed means of uniting the party and 
covering up its misdeeds. The demand for reform, 
as often as made, was instantly rebuked, and the 
men who uttered it branded as enemies of the 



t' 



i 



332 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

party and sympathizers with treason. It is need- 
less to go into details ; but such was the drift of 
general demoralization that the chief founders and 
pre-eminent representatives of the party, Chase, 
Seward, Sumner and Greeley were obliged to 
desert it more than a year before the end of Gen. 
Grant's first administration, as the only means of 
maintaining their honor and self-respect. My 
Congressional term expired a little after Grant 
and Babcock had inaugurated the San Domingo 
project, and Sumner had been degraded from the 
Chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Affairs 
to make room for Simon Cameron. The "irrepres- 
sible conflict " had just begun to develop itself be- 
tween the element of honesty and reform in the 
party, and the corrupt leadership which sought to 
make merchandise of its good name, and hide its 
sins under the mantle of its past achievements. 

After the adjournment of the Forty-first Con- 
gress in March, 1871, I visited New York, where 
I called on Greeley. We took a drive together, 
and spent the evening at the house of a mutual 
friend, where we had a free political talk. He de- 
nounced the Administration and the San Dominsro 
project in a style which commanded my decided 
approval, for my original dislike of Grant had been 
ripening into disgust and contempt, and, like 
Greeley, I had fully made up my mind that under 
no circumstance could I ever again give him my 
support. After my return home I wrote several 



GRANT AND GREELEY. 333 

articles for the Press in favor of a " new depar- 
ture " in the principles of the party. Mr. Valland- 
ingham had just given currency to this phrase by 
employing it to designate his proposed policy of • 
Democratic acquiescence in the XIV and XV 
Constitutional Amendments, which was seconded 
by the ** Missouri Republican," and accepted by 
the party the following year. The " new depart- 
ure " I commended to my own party was equally 
thorough, proposing the radical reform of its Tariff 
and Land Policy, and its emancipation from the 
rule of great corporations and monopolies ; a thor- 
ough reform of its Civil Service, beginning with a 
declaration in favor of the " one-term principle," 
and condemning the action of the President in 
employing the whole power and patronage of his 
high office in securing his re-election for a second 
term by hurling from office honest, capable and 
faithful men, simply to make places for scalawags 
and thieves; and the unqualified repudiation of 
his conduct in heaping honors and emoluments 
upon his poor kin, while accepting presents of fine 
houses and other tempting gifts from unworthy 
men, who were paid off in fat places. I did not 
favor the disbanding of the party, or ask that it 
should make war on Gen. Grant, but earnestly pro- 
tested against the policy that sought to Tammany- 
ize the organization through his re-nomination. 

Returning to Washington on the meeting of 
Congress in December, I conferred with Trumbull, 



334 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

Schurz and Sumner, respecting the situation, and 
the duty of Republicans in facing the party crisis 
which was evidently approaching. During the 
session, I listened to the great debate in the Sen- 
ate on Sumner's resolution of inquiry as to the 
sale of arms to the French, and was delighted with 
the replies of Schurz and Sumner to Conkling 
and Morton. ^.\My dislike of the President stead- 
ily increased, and his disgraceful conduct towards 
Sumner and alliance with Morton, Conkling, Cam- 
eron, and their associates rendered it morally 
impossible for me any longer to fight under his 
banner. The situation became painfully embar- 
rassing, since every indication seemed to point 
to his re-nomination as a foregone conclusion. 
But I clung to the hope that events would in 
some way order it otherwise. In February, I was 
strongly urged to become a candidate for Con- 
gressman at large under the new Congressional 
apportionment ; and although failing health un- 
fitted me for active politics, to which I had no 
wish to return, I really wanted the compliment 
of the nomination. The long-continued and wan- 
ton opposition which had been waged against 
me in my own party led me to covet it, and in 
the hope that General Grant's nomination might 
yet be averted I allowed my friends to urge my 
claims, and to believe I would accept the honor 
if tendered, which I meant to do should this hope 
be realized. I saw that I could secure it. My 



GRANT AND GREELEY. 335 

standing in my own party was better than ever 
before. The " Indianapolis Journal," for the first 
time, espoused my cause, along with other leading 
Republican papers in different sections of the State. 
The impolicy and injustice of the warfare which had 
long been carried on against me in Indiana were so 
generally felt by all fair-minded Republicans that 
Senator Morton himself, though personally quite 
as hostile as ever, was constrained to call off his 
forces, and favor a policy of conciliation. It was 
evident that my nomination was assured if I re- 
mained in the field ; but as time wore on I saw that 
the re-nomination of General Grant had become 
absolutely inevitable ; and as I could not support 
him I could not honorably accept a position which 
would commit me in his favor. The convention 
was held on the 22d of February, and on the 
day before I sent a telegram peremptorily refus- 
ing to stand as a candidate ; and I soon afterward 
formally committed myself to the Liberal Repub- 
lican movement. I could not aid in the re-election 
of Grant without sinning against decency and my 
own self-respect. I deplored the fact, but there 
was no other alternative. If it had been morally 
possible, I would have supported him gladly. I 
had no personal grievances to complain of, and 
most sincerely regretted the necessity which com- 
pelled my withdrawal from political associations 
in which I had labored many long years, and 
through seasons of great national danger. If I 



336 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



had consulted my own selfish ambition I would 
have chosen a different course, since I knew by 
painful experience the cost of party desertion, while 
the fact was well known that the prizes of politics 
were within my reach, if I had sought them through 
the machinery of the Republican organization and 
the support of General Grant. Had the party^ 
having accomplished the work which called it 
into being, applied itself to the living questions 
of the times, and resolutely set its face against 
political corruption and plunder, and had it freely 
tolerated honest differences of opinion in its own 
ranks, treating the question of Grant's re-nomina- 
tion as an open one, instead of making it a test of 
Republicanism and a cause for political excom- 
munication, I could have avoided a separation, at 
least at that time. I made it with many keen 
pangs of regret, for the history of the party had 
been honorable and glorious, and I had shared in its 
achievements. My revolt against its discipline for- 
cibly reminded me of the year 1848, and was by far 
the severest political trial of my life. Wy new posi- 
tion not only placed me in very strange relations to 
the Democrats, whose misdeeds I had so earnestly 
denounced for years ; but I could not fail to see 
that the great body of my old friends would now 
become my unrelenting foes. Their party intoler- 
ance would know no bounds, and I was not un- 
mindful of its power ; but there was no way of 
escape, and with a sad heart, but an unflinching 



GRANT AND GREELE\. 337 

purpose, I resolved to face the consequences of my 
decision. My chief regret was that impaired 
health deprived me of the strength and endurance 
I would now sorely need in repelling wanton and 
very provoking assaults. 

I attended the Liberal Republican Convention 
at Cincinnati on the first of May, where I was de- 
lighted to meet troops of the old Free Soilers of 
1848 and 1852. It was a mass convention of Re- 
publicans, suddenly called together without the 
power of money or the help of party machinery, 
and prompted by a burning desire to rebuke the 
scandals of Gen. Grant's administration, and rescue 
both the party and the country from political cor- 
ruption and misrule. It was a spontaneous and 
independent movement, and its success necessarily 
depended upon the wisdom of its action and not 
the force of party obligation. There were doubt- 
less political schemers and mercenaries in attend- 
ance, but the rank and file were unquestionably 
conscientious and patriotic, and profoundly in 
earnest. I never saw a finer looking body assem- 
bled. It was a more formidable popular demon- 
stration than the famous Convention at Buffalo, in 
1848, and gave promise of more immediate and 
decisive results. There was a very widespread 
feeling that the Cincinnati ticket would win, and 
the friends of Gen. Grant could not disguise their 
apprehension. The thought seemed to inspire 

every one that a way was now fortunately opened 
99 



338 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

for hastening the end of sectional strife and purify- 
ing the administration of public affairs. The cap- 
ital speech of Stanley Matthews, on accepting the 
temporary chairmanship of the Convention, was 
but the echo of the feeling of the Convention, and 
its confident prophecy of victory, " Parties," said 
he, " can not live on their reputations. It was re- 
marked, I believe, by Sir Walter Raleigh, in 
reference to the strife of ancestry, that those who 
boasted most of their .progenitors were like the 
plant he had discovered in America, the best part 
was under ground." He declared that "the time 
has come when it is the voice of an exceedingly 
large and influential portion of the American peo- 
ple that they will no longer be dogs to wear the 
collar of a party." All that now seemed wanting 
was wise leadership, and a fair expression of the 
real wish and purpose of the Convention. 

The principal candidates were Charles Francis 
Adams, Horace Greeley, Lyman Trumbull, David 
Davis, and B. Gratz Brown. Mr. Chase still had 
a lingering form of the Presidential fever, and his 
particular friends were lying in wait for a timely 
opportunity to bring him forward ; but his claims 
were not seriously considered. The friends of 
Judge Davis did him much damage by furnishing 
transportation and supplies for large Western dele- 
gations, who very noisily pressed his claims in the 
Convention. With prudent leadership his chances 
for the nomination would have been good, and he 



GRANT AND GREELEY. 339 

would have been a very formidable candidate ; but 
he was "smothered by his friends." The really 
formidable candidates were Adams and Greeley, 
and during the first and second days the chances 
were decidedly in favor of the former. On the 
evening of the second day Mr. Brown and Gen. 
Blair arrived in the city, pretending that they had 
come for the purpose of arranging a trouble in 
the Missouri delegation ; but their real purpose 
was to throw the strength of Brown, who was 
found to have no chance for the first place, in 
favor of Greeley, who had said some very flatter- 
ing words of Brown some time before in a letter 
published in a Missouri newspaper. This new 
movement further included the nomination of 
Brown for the second place on the ticket, and was 
largely aimed at Carl Schurz, who was an Adams 
man, and had refused, though personally very 
friendly to Brown, to back his claims for the Pres- 
idential nomination. It seemed to be a lucky hit 
for Greeley, who secured the nomination; but the 
real cause of Mr. Adams' defeat, after all, was the 
folly of Trumbull's friends, who preferred Adams 
to Greeley, in holding on to their man in the vain 
hope of his nomination. They could have nomi- 
nated Adams on the fourth or fifth ballot, if they 
had given him their votes, as they saw when it was 
tco late. Greeley regretted Brown's nomination, 
and afterward expressed his preference for another 
gentleman from the West; and he had, of course, 



340 



POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



nothing to do with the movement which placed 
him on the ticket. 

I was wofuUy disappointed in the work of the 
Convention, having Httle faith in the success of 
Greeley, and being entirely confident that Adams 
could be elected if nominated. I still think he would 
have been, and that the work of reform would thus 
have been thoroughly inaugurated, and the whole 
current of American politics radically changed. 
The time was ripe for it. His defeat was a wet 
blanket upon many of the leading spirits of the 
Convention and their followers. The disappoint- 
ment of some of these was unspeakably bitter and 
agonizing. Stanley Matthews, illustrating his pro- 
verbial instability in politics, and forgetting his 
brave resolve no longer "to wear the collar of a 
party," abruptly deserted to the enemy. The 
" New York Nation " also suddenly changed front, 
giving its feeble support to General Grant, and its 
malignant hostility to Greeley. The leading Free 
Traders in the Convention who had enlisted zeal- 
ously for Adams became indifferent or hostile. 
Many of the best informed of the Liberal leaders 
felt that a magnificent opportunity to launch the 
work of reform and crown it with success had 
been madly thrown away. With the zealous friends 
of Mr. Adams it was a season of infinite vexation; 
but for me there was no backward step. The new- 
born movement had blundered, but Republicanism 
under the lead of Grant remained as odious as 



GRA NT A ND GREEL EY. 341 

ever. It was still the duty of its enemies to op- 
pose it, and no other method of doing this was 
left them than through the organization just formed. 
That a movement so suddenly extemporized should 
make mistakes was by no means surprising, while 
there was a fairly iVnplied obligation on the part of 
those who had joined in its organization to abide 
by its action, if not wantonly recreant to the prin- 
ciples that had inspired it. The hearts of the lib- 
eral masses were for Greeley, and if he could not 
be elected, which was by no means certain, his 
supporters could at least make their organized pro- 
test against the maladministration of the party in 
power. 

I attended the Democratic State Convention of 
Indiana on the twelfth of June, which was one of 
the largest and most enthusiastic ever held in the 
State. The masses seemed to have completely 
broken away from their old moorings, and to be 
rejoicing in their escape, while their leaders, many 
of them reluctantly, accepted the situation. Both 
were surprisingly friendly to me. and their purpose 
was to nominate me as one of the candidates for 
Congressman-at-large, which they would have done 
by acclamation if I had consented. I was much 
cheered by such tokens of union and fraternity in 
facing the common enemy. The State campaign 
was finely opened at Indianapolis on the eleventh 
of July, where I presented the issues of the can- 
vass from the Liberal standpoint; and I continued 



342 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



almost constantly on the stump till the State elec- 
tion in October, having splendid audiences, and 
gathering strength and inspiration from the pre- 
vailing enthusiasm of the canvass. The meetings 
toward the close were real ovations, strikingly re- 
minding me of the campaign of 1856. Up to the 
time of the North Carolina election I had strong 
hopes of victory ; but owing to the alarm which had 
si^^ized the Grant men on account of Greeley's un- 
expected popularity, and the lavish expenditure 
of their money which followed, the tide was turned, 
and was never afterward checked in its course. 
They became unspeakably bitter and venomous, 
and I never before encountered such torrents of 
abuse and defamation, outstripping, as it seemed to 
me, even the rabidness which confronted the Aboli- 
tionists in their early experience. At one of my 
appointments a number of colored men came armed 
with revolvers, and breathing the spirit of war 
which Senator Morton was doing his utmost to 
kindle. He had been telling the people every- 
where that Greeley and his followers were Rebels, 
seeking to undo all the work of the war, to re-en- 
slave the negro, and saddle upon the country the 
rebel debt ; and these colored men, heeding his 
logic, thought that killing Rebels now was as 
proper a business as during the war, and would 
probably have begun their work of murder 
if they had not been restrained by the more pru- 
dent counsel of their white brethren. Even in one 



GRANT AND GREELEY. 343 

of the old towns in Eastern Indiana which had been 
long known as the headquarters of Abolitionism, 
a large supply of eggs was provided for my enter- 
tainment when I went there to speak for Greeley ; 
and they were not thrown at me simply because 
the fear of a reaction against the party would be 
the result. The Democrats in this canvass were 
rather handsomely treated; but, the fierceness and 
fury of the Grant men toward the Liberal Repub- 
licans were unrelieved by a single element of honor 
or fair play. 

This was pre-eminently true in Indiana, and es- 
pecially so as to myself The leaders of Grant, 
borrowing the spirit of the campaign, set all the 
canons of decency at defiance. " Sore head," 
"Renegade," "Apostate," "Rebel," and ''dead- 
beat," were the compliments constantly lavished. 
Garbled extracts from my old war speeches were 
plentifully scattered over the State, as if we had 
been still in the midst of the bloody conflict, and I 
had suddenly betrayed the country to its enemies. 
Garbled and forged letters were peddled and parad- 
ed over the State by windy political blatherskites, 
who were hired to propagate the calumnies of 
their employers. In fact, my previous political 
experience supplied no precedent for this warfare 
of my former Republican friends. But I was not 
unprepared for it, and fully availed myself of the 
right of self-defense and counter attack. I would 
not make myself a blackg-uard, but I met my as- 



344 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



sailants in every encounter with the weapons of 
argument and invective, and stretched them on the 
raclc of my ridicule ; Vv^hile their prolonged howl 
bore witness to the effectiveness of my work. My 
whole heart was in it. The fervor and enthusiasm 
of earlier years came back to me, and a kindred 
courage and faith armed me with the strength 
which the work of the canvass demanded. 

The novelty of the canvass was indeed remark- 
able in all respects. The Liberal E.epublicans had 
not changed any of their political opinions, nor 
deserted any principle they had ever espoused, 
touching the questions of slavery and the war ; 
and yet they were now in the fiercest antagonism 
with the men who had been politically associated 
with them ever since the organization of the party, 
and who had trusted and honored them through 
all the struggles of the past. They were branded 
as "Apostates" from their anti-slavery faith ; but 
slavery had perished forever, and every man of 
them would have been found fighting it as before, 
if it had been practicable to call it back to life ; 
while many of their assailants had distinguished 
themselves by mobbing Abolitionism in the day 
of its weakness. How could men apostatize from 
a cause which they had served with unflinching 
fidelity until it was completely triumphant? And 
how was it possible to fall from political grace by 
withdrawing from the fellowship of the knaves and 
traders that formed the body-guard of the Presi- 



GRANT AND GREELEY. 



345 



dent, and were using the Republican party as the 
instrument of wholesale schemes of jobbery and 
pelf? To charge the Liberal Republicans with 
apostasy because they had the moral courage to 
disown and denounce these men was to invent a 
definition of the term which would have made all 
the great apostates of history " honorable men." 

They were called " Rebels " ; but the war had 
been over seven years and a half, and if the clock 
of our politics could have been set back and the 
bloody conflict re-instated, every Liberal would 
have been shouting, as before, for its vigorous 
prosecution. No man doubted this who was 
capable of taking care of himself without the help 
of a guardian. 

It was charged that " they changed sides " in 
politics; but the sides themselves had been changed 
by events, and the substitution of new issues for 
the old, and nobody could deny this who was not 
besotted by party devil-worship or the density of 
his political ignorance. 

They were called " sore-heads " and " disap- 
pointed place-hunters ;" but the Liberal Leaders, 
in rebelling against their party in the noon-day of 
its power, and when its honors were within their 
grasp, were obliged to "put away ambition" and 
taste political death, and thus courageously illus- 
trate the truth that '' the duties of life are more 
than life." The charge was as glaringly stupid as 
it was flagrantly false. 



346 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

But the novelty of th's canvass was equally man- 
ifest in the political fellowships it necessitated. 
While facing the savage warfare of their former 
friends Liberal Republicans were suddenly brought 
into the most friendly and intimate relations with 
the men whose recreancy to humanity they had 
unsparingly denounced for years. They were now 
working with these men because the subjects on 
which they had been divided were withdrawn, and 
the country had entered upon a new dispensation. 
The mollifying influence of peace, aided, no doubt, 
by the organized roguery which in the name of Re- 
publicanism held the Nation by the throat, un- 
veiled to Liberals a new political horizon, and they 
gladly exchanged the key-note of hate and war for 
that of fraternity and reunion. They saw that the 
spirit of wrath which had so moved the Northern 
States during the conflict was no longer in order. 
The more they pondered the policy of amnesty and 
followed up the work of the canvass the more 
thoroughly they became reconstructed in heart. 
They discovered that the men whom they had been 
denouncing with such hot indignation for so many 
years were, after all, very much like other people. 
Personally and socially they seemed quite as kindly 
and as estimable as the men on the other side, while 
very many of them had undoubtedly espoused the 
cause of slavery under a mistaken view of their 
constitutional obligations, and as a phase of patri- 
otism, while sincerely condemning it on principle. 



GRANT AND GREELEY. 



347 



Besides, Democrats had done a very large and in- 
dispensable work in the war for the Union, and they 
now stood upon common ground with the Repub- 
licans touching the questions on which they had 
differed. On these questions the party platforms 
were identical. If their position was accepted as a 
necessity and not from choice, they were only a 
little behind the Republicans, who, as a party, only 
espoused the cause of the negro under the whip 
and spur of military necessity, and not the prompt- 
ings of humanity. In the light of such considera- 
tions it was not strange that the Greeley men gladly 
accepted their deliverance from the glamour which 
was blinding the eyes of their old associates to the 
policy of reconciliation and peace, and blocking up 
the pathway of greatly needed reforms. 

Soon after the State election I resumed my 
work on the stump, which included a series of 
appointments in Kansas, where I addressed by far 
the most enthusiastic meetings of the campaign. 
My welcome to the State was made singularly 
cordial by the part I had played in Congress in 
opposing enormous schemes of land monopoly 
and plunder, which had been concocted by some 
of her own public servants in the interest of rail- 
way corporations and Indian rings. On my return 
to Indiana the signs of defeat in November became 
alarming, and they were justified by the result. 
It was overwhelming and stunning. Democrats 
and Liberals were completely dismayed and be- 



348 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

wildered. The cause of Mr. Greeley's defeat, 
speaking generally, was the perfectly unscrupu- 
lous and desperate hostility of the party for which 
he had done more than any other man, living 
or dead ; but the disaster resulted, more immedi- 
ately, from the stupid and criminal defection of 
the Bourbon element in the Democratic party, 
which co.uld not be rallied, under the banner of 
an old anti-slavery chief Thousands of this class, 
who sincerely hated Abolitionism, and loved negro 
slavery more than they loved their country, voted 
directly for Grant, while still greater numbers de- 
clined to vote at all. Mr. Greeley's own explana- 
tion of the result, which he gave to a friend soon 
after the election, was as follows : " I was an 
Abolitionist for years, when it was as much as one's 
life was worth even here in New York, to be an 
Abolitionist; and the negroes have all voted against 
me. Whatever of talents and energy I have pos- 
sessed I have freely contributed all my life long 
to Protection; to the cause of our manufactures. 
And the manufacturers have expended millions to 
defeat me. I even made myself ridiculous in the 
opinion of man}^ whose good wishes I desired by 
showing fair play and giving a fair field in the 
'Tribune' to Woman's Rights ; and the women have 
all gone against me !" 

Greeley, however, received nearly three million 
votes, being considerably more than Governor Sey- 
mour had received four years before ; but General 



GRANT AND GREELEY, 349 

.Grant, who had been unanimously nojninated by his 
party, was elected by two hundred and eighty-six 
electoral votes, and a popular majority of nearly 
three quarters of a million, carrying thirty-one of 
the thirty-seven States. To the sincere friends of 
political reform the situation seemed hopeless. The 
President was re- crowned our King, and political 
corruption had now received so emphatic a pre- 
mium that honesty was tempted to give up the 
struggle in despair. His cham.pions were already 
talking about a " third term," while the Repub- 
lican party had become the representative and 
champion of great corporations, and the instrument 
of organized political corruption and theft. 

And yet this fight of Liberals and Democrats 
was not in vain. They planted the seed which 
ripened into a great popular victory four years 
later, while the policy of reconciliation for which 
they battled against overwhelming odds was 
hastened by their labors, and has been finally ac- 
cepted by the country. ' They were still further 
and more completely vindicated by the misdeeds 
of the party they had sought to defeat. The spec- 
tacle of our public affairs became so revolting that 
before the middle of General Grant's second term 
all the great Republican States in the North were 
lost to the party, while leading Republicans be- 
gan to agitate the question of remanding the 
States of the South to territorial rule, on account 
of their disordered condition. At the end of this 



350 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

term the Republican majority in the Senate had 
dwindled from fifty-four to seventeen, while in the 
House the majority of one hundred and four had 
been wiped out to give place to a Democratic ma- 
jority of seventy-seven. No vindication of the 
maligned Liberals of 1872 could have been more 
complete, while it summoned to the bar of history 
the party whose action had thus brought shame 
upon the Nation and a stain upon Republican in- 
stitutions. 

After the presidential election I went to Wash- 
ington, where I met Chief Justice Chase in the Su- 
preme Court and accepted an invitation to dine with 
him. He looked so wasted and prematurely old 
that I scarcely knew him. He was very genial, 
however, and our long political talk was exceed- 
ingly enjoyable. It seemed to afford him much 
satisfaction to show me a recently reported dissent- 
ing opinion of his in which he re-asserted his 
favorite principle of State rights. I only met him 
once afterward, and this was at the inauguration 
of General Grant. I called on Mr. Sumner the 
same evening, and found him in a wretched state of 
health, which was aggravated by the free use of 
poisonous drugs. Heseemedvery much depressed, 
politically. He had lost caste with the great party 
that had so long idolized him, and which he had 
done so much to create and inspire. He had been 
deserted by the colored race, to whose service he 
had unselfishly dedicated his life. He had been de- 



GRANT AND GREELEY. 351 

graded from his honored place at the head of the 
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and for 
no other reason than the faithful and conscientious 
performance of his public duty. He had been 
rebuked by the Legislature of his own State. 
His case strikingly suggested that of John Quincy 
Adams in 1807, when the anathemas of Massachu- 
setts were showered upon him for leaving the Fed- 
eral party when it had accomplished its mission 
and survived its character, and joining the sup- 
porters of Jefferson. I sympathized with him pro- 
foundly; but his case was not so infinitely sad as 
that of poor Greeley, over whose death, however, 
the whole Nation seemed to be in mourning. He 
had greatly overtaxed himself in his masterly and 
brilliant campaign on the stump, in which he dis- 
played unrivaled intellectual resources and versa- 
tility. He had exhausted himself in watching by 
the bedside of his dying wife. He had been assailed 
as the enemy of his country by the party which he 
had done more than any man in the Nation to 
organize. He had been hunted to his grave by 
political assassins whose calumnies broke his heart. 
He was scarcely less a martyr than Lincoln, or less 
honored after his death, and his graceless defamers 
now seemed to think they could atone for their 
crime by singing his praises. It is easy to speak 
well of the dead. It is very easy, even for base and 
recreant characters, to laud a man's virtues after he 
has gone to his grave and can no longer stand in 



352 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

their path. It is far easier to praise the dead than 
do justice to the living ; and it was not strange, 
therefore, that eminent clergymen and doctors of 
divinity who had silently witnessed the peltings of 
Mr. Greeley by demagogues and mercenaries during 
the canvass now poured out their eloquence at his 
grave. What he had sorely needed and was re- 
ligiously entitled to was the sympathy and succor 
of good men while he lived, and especially in his 
heroic struggle for political reconciliation and re- 
form. The circumstances of his death made it 
peculiarly touching and sacramental, and I was in- 
expressibly glad that I had fought his battle so un- 
flinchingly, and defended him everywhere against 
his conscienceless assailants. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

CONCLUDING NOTES. 

Party changes caused by the slavery issue — Notable men in Con- 
gress during the war — Sketches of prominent men in the 
Senate and House — Scenes and incidents — Butler and Bing- 
ham — Cox and Butler — Judge Kelley and Van Wyck — 
Lovejoy and Wickliffe — Washburne and Donnelly — Oakes 
Ames — Abolitionism in Washington early in the war — Life 
at the capital — The new dispensation and its problems. 

In the early part of the period covered by the pre- 
ceding chapters our poHtical parties were divided on 
mere questions of policy and methods of administra- 
tion. Trade, Currency, Internal Improvements, and 
the Public Lands were the absorbing issues, while 
both parties took their stand against the humani- 
tarian movement which subsequently put those 
issues completely in abeyance, and compelled the 
country to face a question involving not merel}^ 
the policy of governing, but the existence of the 
Government itself. When the slavery question 
finally forced its way into recognition it naturally 
brought to the front a new class of public men, 
and their numbers, as I have shown, steadily in- 
creased in each Congress from the year 1845 till 
the outbreak of the Rebellion in 1861. The Con- 
23 (353) 



354 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS, 

gress which came into power with Mr. Lincoln 
did not fully represent the anti-slavery spirit of the 
Northern States, but it was a decided improve- 
ment upon its predecessors. In the Senate were 
such men as Collamer, Fessenden, Doolittle, 
Baker, Browning, Anthon}^, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, 
Sherman, Trumbull, Sumner, Wade, Henry Wil- 
son, Chandler, Lane of Indiana, Harris of New 
York, Andrew Johnson, B. Gratz Brown and 
Howard. In the House were Conkling, Bingham- 
Colfax, Dawes, Grow, Hickman, Kelley, Potter, 
Lovejoy, Pike of Maine, Ashley, Rollins of Mis- 
souri, Shellabarger, Thaddeus Stevens, Elihu B. 
Washburn, Isaac N. Arnold and James F. Wilson. 
During the Rebellion and the years immediately 
following, Ferry of Connecticut, Cresswell, Ed- 
monds, Conkling, Morgan, Morton, Yates, Car- 
penter, Hamlin, Henderson, Morrill of Maine, 
and Schurz, were added to the prominent men of 
the Senate, and Boutwell, Blair, Henry Winter 
Davis, Deming, Jenckes, Garfield, Schenck, Banks, 
Orth, Raymond, Butler, Hoar, McCrary, to the 
list in the House. During this period the Demo- 
crats had in the Senate such men as Bayard, Garret 
Davis, Hicks, Saulsbury, Buckalew, Hendricks, 
Bright, Reverdy Johnson, Thurman, and F. P. 
Blair; and in the House, S. S. Cox, Crittenden, 
Holman, Kerr, Pendleton, Richardson, Valland- 
ingham, Niblack, Voorhees, Brooks, Randall, 
and Woodward. The men who controlled Con- 



CONCLUDING NOTES. 355 



gress during these years of trial were not the in- 
tellectual equals of the famous leaders who figured 
in the great crisis of 1850, but they were a differ- 
ent and generally a better type. They were sum- 
moned to the public service to deal with tremen- 
dous problems, and lifted up and ennobled by the 
great cause they were commissioned to serve. It 
did more for them than it was possible for them to 
do for it. It took hold on the very foundations 
of the Government, and electrified all the springs 
of our national life ; and although great mistakes 
were made, and the fervor of this period was fol- 
lowed by a sickening dispensation of demoralized 
politics, it was a great privilege to be permitted to 
share in the grand battle for the Nation's life, and 
the work of radical re-adjustment which followed. 
I have already referred to several of the con- 
spicuous characters whose names I have grouped. 
Such men as Collamer, Fessenden, Browning and 
Trumbull, were among the famous lawyers and 
conservatives on the Republican side of the Senate. 
They were conscientious and unflinching partisans, 
but were studiously anxious to save the Union 
according to the Constitution, and deprecated all 
extreme and doubtful measures. Opposed to them 
stood Sumner, Wade, Chandler, and their radical 
associates, who believed in saving the Union at all 
hazards, and that not even the Constitution should 
be allowed to stay the arm of the Government in 
blasting the power of the Rebels. It was perhaps 



356 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

fortunate for the country that these divisions ex- 
isted, and held each other in check. Mr. CoUamer 
was the impersonation of logical force and the 
beau ideal of a lawyer and judge. There was a 
sort of majesty in the figure and brow of P>ssen- 
den when addressing the Senate, and his sarcasm 
was as keen as it was inimitable ; but his nature 
was kindly, and his integrity perfect. Trumbull 
was a less commanding figure, but he greatly hon- 
ored his position as chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee of the Senate, and his memory will be 
held in perpetual remembrance as the author of the 
Civil Rights Bill and of the XIII Amendment to 
the Constitution. Sumner, I think, was the purest 
man in the Senate, if not the ablest. He was pre- 
eminently the hero of duty, and the servant of 
what he believed to be the truth. No man could 
have made a more absolute surrender of himself to 
his country in the great conflict which threatened 
its life. His weary and jaded look always excited 
my sympathy, for he seemed to be sacrificing all 
the joys of life, and life itself, in his zeal for the 
public service. I knew Wade more intimately 
than any man in the Senate, through my associa- 
tion with him as a member of the same Committee 
for successive years, and was always interested in 
his personal traits and peculiarities. He was " a 
man of uncommon downrightness." There was 
even a sort of fascination about his profanity. It 
had in it a spontaniety and heartiness which made 



CONCLUDING NOTES. 357 



it almost seem the echo of a virtue. It was unHke 
the profane words of Thaddeus Stevens, which 
were frequently carried on the shafts of his wit and 
lost in the laughter it provoked. Edmunds, now 
so famous as a lawyer, and leader in the Senate, 
and so well known by his reputed resemblance to 
St. Jerome, was simply respectable on his first ap- 
pearance ; but his ability, industry, and constant 
devotion to his duties soon gave him rank among 
the prominent men in that body. Grimes of Iowa 
was one of the really strong men of this period, 
while Harlan, his colleague, possessed a vigor 
and grasp of mind which I think the public never 
fully accorded him. Lane of Indiana was full of 
patriotic ardor, and like Baker of Oregon, had the 
rare gift of eloquent impromptu speech. Henry 
Wilson earned the gratitude of his country by his 
unswerving loyalty to freedom, and his great labors 
and invaluable services as chairman of the Military 
Committee. Howard ranked among the first law- 
yers and most faithful men in the body, and no 
man had a clearer grasp of the issues of the war. 
Henderson was a strong man, whose integrity and 
political independence were afterward abundantly 
proved. Doolittle was a man of vigor, and made 
a good record as a Republican, but he naturally 
belonged to the other side of the Senate, and finally 
found his way to it through the quarrel with 
Johnson. 

Garret Davis was always an interesting figure. 



358 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

His volubility of talk bordered on the miraculous ; 
and whenever he began to swathe the Senate in 
his interminable rhetoric it awakened the laughter 
or the despair of everybody on the floor or in the 
galleries. Bayard and Thurman were recognized 
as the strong men on their side of the Senate in 
the Forty-first Congress. Buckalew was one of 
the really sterling men of his party, but he was a 
modest man, and only appreciated by those who 
knew him intimately. As a leading Democrat, 
Hendricks stood well in the Senate. He was so 
cautious and diplomatic in temper and so genial 
and conciliatory in his manner that he glided 
smoothly through the rugged conflict of opinions 
in which his side of the chamber was unavoidably 
involved. B. Gratz Brown was known as an in- 
tense radical, but he made little mark in this crisis. 
He wrote out elaborate and scholarly essays which 
he read to the Senate, but the}^ received slight at- 
tention from members, and seemed to bear little 
fruit. Carpenter, Schurz and Morton took their 
seats after the war, and were not long in finding 
honorable recognition. Carpenter was as brilliant 
and versatile in intellect as he was naturally elo- 
quent in speech and wayward in morals. Carl 
Schurz displayed ability in the famous debate with 
Morton and Conkling on the sale of arms to the 
French, and his political independence in 1872 
gave him great prominence as a Liberal Republi- 
can leader ; but that virtue has been less conspicu- 



CONCLUDhYG NOTES. 359 



ously illustrated in later years. Morton became 
famous soon after he entered the Senate. The 
** logic of events " had revolutionized the opinions 
so vigorously espoused by him only a few months 
before, and his great speech on reconstruction, in 
which he avowed and defended his change of base, 
brought him into great prominence, and multiplied 
his friends in every section of the country. 

In the House, Roscoe Conkling was recognized 
as a man of considerable talent and great self-es- 
teem. I have elsewhere referred to his passage at 
arms with Blaine. He never linked his name with 
any important principle or policy, and was sin- 
gularly wanting in the qualities of a party leader. 
No one questioned his personal integrity, but in 
later years he was prompt and zealous in the de- 
fense of the worst abuses which found shelter in 
his party. Mr. Sherman was shrewd, wiry and 
diplomatic, but gave little promise of the career he 
has since achieved through ambition, industry and 
favoring conditions. Shellabarger was one of the 
ablest men in the House, and was so rated. He 
was always faithful and vigilant, and I have before 
given an instance of this in his timely action on 
the question of reconstruction. Mr. Blaine, during 
the first years of his service, showed little activity. 
He spoke but seldom and briefly, but always with 
vigor and effect. He steadily grew into favor with 
his party in the House as a man of force, but 
without seeming to strive for it. I think his abilities 



360 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

were never fully appreciated till he became speaker. 
His personal magnetism was as remarkable as his 
readiness to serve a friend was unfailing; but, like 
Mr. Conkling, he never identified himself with any- 
great legislative measure. 

Henry Winter Davis was the most formidable 
debater in the House. He was full of resources, 
while the rapidity of his utterance and the impet- 
uosity of his speech bore down every thing before 
it. The fire and force of his personality seemed to 
make him irresistible, and can only be likened to 
the power displayed by Mr. Blaine in the House 
in his later and palmier years. When Gen. Gar- 
field entered the Thirty-eighth Congress there 
was a winning modesty in his demeanor. I was 
interested in his first effort on the floor, which was 
brief, and marked by evident diffidence. He was 
not long, however, in recovering his self-possession, 
and soon engaged actively in general debate. His 
oratory, at first, was the reverse of winning, owing 
to the peculiar intonation of his voice, but grad- 
ually improved, while his hunger for knowledge, 
unflagging industry, and ambition for distinction, 
gradually revealed themselves as very clearly de- 
fined traits. During the first years of his service 
the singular grasp of his mind was not appreciated, 
but it was easy to see that he was growing, and 
that a man of his political ambition and great in- 
dustry could not be satisfied with any position of 
political mediocrity. His situation as a Repre- 



CONCLUDING NOTES. 36 1 



sentative of the Nineteenth Ohio District was ex- 
ceedingly favorable to his aspirations, as it was the 
custom of that district to continue a man in its 
service when once installed, and its overwhelming 
majority relieved him of all concern about the result. 
He could thus give his whole time and thought 
to the study of politics, and the mastery of those 
historical and literary pursuits which he afterward 
made so available in the finish and embellishment 
of. his speeches. 

As a parliamentary leader, Mr. Stevens, of course, 
was always the central figure in the House. No 
possible emergency could disconcerthim. Whether 
the attack came from friend or foe, or in whatever 
form, he was ready, on the instant, to repel it and 
turn the tables completely upon his assailant. He 
exercised the most absolute freedom of speech, 
making his thrusts with the same coolness at " un- 
righteous copperheads and self-righteous Republi- 
cans." In referring to the moderate and deprecatory 
views of Colfax and Olin, in January, 1863, he said 
he had always been fifteen years in advance of his 
party, but never so far ahead that its members did 
not overtake him. His keenest thrusts were fre- 
quently made in such a tone and manner as to dis 
arm them of their sting, and create universal merri- 
ment. When Whaley of West Virginia begged 
him, importunately, to yield the floor a moment for 
a brief statement, while Mr. Stevens was much 
engrossed with an important discussion, he finally 



362 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

gave way, saying, " Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gen- 
tleman from West Virginia for a few feeble re- 
marks." When he lost his temper and waged war 
in earnest his invective was absolutely remorseless, 
as in the example I have given of it in a previous 
chapter. 

I have before referred to the oratory of Bingham. 
He was a reader of books and a master of En- 
glish. He loved poetry, and was one of the most 
genial and companionable of men, but he was 
irritable and crispy in temper, and a formidable cus- 
tomer in debate. He had several angry bouts 
with Butler, in one of which he spoke sneeringly 
of the " hero of Fort Fisher," to which Butler re- 
plied that the gentleman from Ohio had shown his 
prowess in the hanging of Mrs. Surratt, an in- 
nocent woman, upon the scaffold. Bingham re- 
torted that such a charge was " only fit to come 
from a man who lives in a bottle, and is fed with a 
spoon." He was often dogmatic and lacking in 
coolness and balance, but in later years he showed 
uncommon tact in extricating himself from the 
odium threatened by his connection with the 
Credit Mobilier scheme. 

One of the really strong men in the House was 
John Hickman, of Pennsylvania, who had been a 
prominent figure in Congress during Buchanan's 
administration. He was a man of brains, courage, 
and worth. Potter was a true and brave man, 
whose acceptance of a challenge from Roger A. 



CONCLUDING NOTES. 363 

Pryor, and choice of butcher knives as the weapons 
of warfare, had made him very popuhir at the 
North. Rollins of Missouri was an eloquent 
man, of superior ability and attainments, and large 
political experience. Pike of Maine was one of 
the first men in the House, but too honest and in- 
dependent to sacrifice his convictions for the sake 
of success. Deming of Connecticut was a man 
of real calibre, and on rare occasions electrified the 
House by his speeches, but he lacked industry. 
One of the finest debaters in the House was Henry 
J. Raymond. He displayed very decided power 
in the debate on Reconstruction, and very effect- 
ively exposed the weakness of the Republicans in 
practically dealing with the Rebel States as if they 
were at once in and out of the Union. Among the 
most striking figures in the House were Butler and 
Cox, whose contests were greatly relished. They 
were well matched, and alternately carried off the 
prize of victory. Butler, in the first onset, achieved a 
decided triumph in his reply to a very personal as- 
sault by Cox. " As to the vituperation of the mem- 
ber from New York," said he, " he will hear my 
answer to him by every boy that whistles it on the 
street, and every hand-organ, ' Shoo, fly, don't bod- 
der me ' ! " Cox, for the time, was extinguished, but 
patiently watched his opportunity till he found his 
revenge, which Butler afterward frankly acknowl- 
edged. For a time there was bad blood between 
them, but they finally became friends, and I think 
so continued. 



364 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

General Banks was always a notable personality. 
His erect figure, military eye, and splendid- voice 
secured for him the admiring attention of the gal- 
leries whenever he addressed the House. Ashley 
of Ohio who took the lead in the impeachment 
movement, in which he was so zealous that he be- 
came known as " Impeachment Ashley," was 
another picturesque figure. His fine pJiysiqiie, 
frolicsome face, and luxuriant suit of curly brown 
hair singled him out among the bald heads of the 
body as one of its most attractive members. Bout- 
well impressed the House as a man of solid qual- 
ities, and a formidable debater. He acquitted 
himself admirably in his defense of Butler against 
a savage attack by Brooks.' Blair was a man of 
ability, independence, and courage, of which his 
record in the House gave ample proof. Wilson 
of Iowa was a young man when he entered Con- 
gress, but soon gave proof of his ability, and took 
rank as one of the best lawyers on the Judiciary 
Committee. Judge Kelley, since known as the 
*' Father of the House," and one of the fathers of 
the Greenback movement, first attracted attention 
by the wonderful volume and power of nis voice. 
It filled the entire Hall, and subdued all rival 
sounds ; but to the surprise of everybody, he met 
with more than his match when he was followed, 
one day, by Van Wyck, of New York, who tri- 
umphantly carried off the palm. Kelley's voice 
was little more than a zephyr, in comparison with 



CONCLUDING NOTES. 365 

the roar and thunder that followed it and called 
forth shouts of laughter, while Kelley quietly occu- 
pied his seat as if in dumb amazement at what had 
happened. 

James Brooks was always a conspicuous figure 
on the Democratic side of the House. I first 
knew him in the log cabin days of 1 840, and after- 
ward served with him in the Congress of 1849. 
He was a man of ability, a genuine hater of the 
negro, and a bitter partisan ; but I never saw any 
reason to doubt his personal integrity, and I think 
the affair which threw so dark a cloud over his 
reputation in later years was a surprise to all who 
knew him. Michael C Kerr was one of the very 
first men in the House, and a man of rare purity 
and worth. Randall, like Garfield, was a g^rowinof 
man during the war, and through his ambition, 
natural abilities, and Congressional training, he 
became one of the chief magnates of his party. 
Pendleton was counted an able man, and made his 
mark as a Bourbon Democrat and the champion 
of hard money; but he subsequently spoiled his 
financial record by his scheme for flooding the 
country with greenbacks. Vallandirigham was con- 
spicuous for his intellectual vigor, passionate ear- 
nestness, and hatred of Abolitionism. He had the 
courage of his opinions. The Republicans hated 
him consumedly. He was a member of the House 
Committee on Public Lands, which reported the 
Homestead Bill, and I remember that no Repub- 



366 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

lican member, except the chairman, showed the 
sHghtest disposition to recognize him. After the 
war was ended, however, and the work of recon- 
struction was accomplished, his temper and qual- 
ities seemed to have spent much of their force. 
He was among the very first to plead for acqui- 
escence and the policy of reconciliation ; and if his 
life had been spared I believe his catholic spirit 
and active leadership in the ** New Departure " 
would have re-instated him in the sincere regard 
of men of all parties. Lovejoy was the most im- 
passioned orator in the House. His speeches were 
remarkable for their pungency and wit, and when 
the question of slavery was under discussion his 
soul took fire. He hated slavery with the ani- 
mosity of a regular Puritan, and when he talked 
about it everybody listened. Wickliffe of Ken- 
tucky was one of the most offensive represen- 
tatives of the Border State policy, and whenever 
he spoke Lovejoy was sure to follow. As often 
as Wickliffe got the floor it was noticed that Love- 
joy's brow was immediately darkened in token of 
the impending strife, while his friends and enemies 
prepared themselves for the scene. Wickliffe was 
a large, fierce-looking man, with a shrill voice, and 
quite as belligerent as Lovejoy; and their contests 
were frequent, and always enjoyed by the House, 
and for some time became a regular feature of its 
business. 

Elihu B. Washburi) "was conspicuous as the 



COXCLUDING NOTES. 7^6 J 

champion of economy. He rivaled Holman as 
the " watch-dog of the treasury " and the enemy 
of land-grants. He was a man of force, and 
rendered valuable service to the country, but he 
assumed such airs of superior virtue, and fre- 
quently lectured the House in so magisterial a tone 
as to make himself a little unpopular with mem- 
bers. This was strikingly illustrated in 1868, in his 
controversy with Donnelly of Minnesota against 
whom he had made some dishonorable charges 
through a Minnesota newspaper. Donnelly was 
aft— trrshman, a wit, and an exceedingly versatile 
genius, and when it became known that he was to 
defend Ijiimself in the House against Washburn's 
charges, and make a counterattack, every member 
was in his seat, although the weather was intensely 
hot and no legislative business was to be trans- 
acted. Donnelly had fully prepared himself, and 
such a castigation as he administered, has rarely, 
if ever, been witnessed in a legislative body. He 
kept up a ceaseless and overwhelming fire of 
wit, irony, and ridicule, for nearly two hours, during 
which the members frequently laughed and some- 
times applauded, while Washburn sat pale and mute 
under the infliction. The tables were turned upon 
him, although portions of Donnelly's tirade were 
unparliamentary, and indefensible on the score of 
coarseness and bad taste. No member, however, 
raised any point of order ; but the friends of Mr. 
Washbura^ afterward surrounded Donnelly, and 



368 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS, 

by artful appeals to his good nature prevailed 
upon him to suppress a portion of the speech, and 
to proffer statements which tended to destroy its 
effect and to restore to Washburn/" the ground he 
had lost. The House had its fun, while Wash- 
burn deigned no reply except to re-affirm his 
charges, and Donnelly's friends were vexed at his 
needless surrender of his vantage-ground. It was 
an odd and unexpected denouement of a very re- 
markable exhibition. 

Oakes Ames was one of the members of the 
House with whom I was best acquainted. I thought 
I knew him well, and I never had the slightest 
reason to suspect his public or private integrity. 
Personally and socially he was one of the kindliest 
men I ever knew, and I was greatly surprised when 
I learned of his connection with the Credit Mobilier 
project. It first found its way into politics through 
a speech of Horace Greeley near the close of the 
canvass of 1872, but it had been fully exposed by 
Washburn of Wisconsin in a speech in Congress 
in the year 1868. The history of its connection 
with American politics and politicians forms an ex- 
ceedingly interesting and curious chapter. The 
fate of the men involved in it seems like a perfect 
travesty of justice and fair play. Some of them 
have gone down under the vx^aves of popular con- 
demnation. Others, occupying substantially the 
same position, according to the evidence, have made 
their escape and even been honored and trusted by 



COyCLUDING NOTES. ^6^ 



the public, while still others are quietly whiling 
away their lives under the shadow of suspicion. 
The case affords a strange commentai)' upon the 
principle of historic justice. 

One of the most remarkable facts connected with 
the first years of the war was the descent of the 
Abolitionists upon Washington. They secured 
the hall of the Smithsonian Institute for their meet- 
ings, which they held weekly, and at which the 
Rev. John Pierpont presided. It was with much 
difficulty that the hall was procured, and one of 
the conditions of granting it was that it should 
be distinctly understood and announced that the 
Smithsonian Institute was to be in no way respon- 
sible for anything that might be said by the speak- 
ers. This was very emphatically insisted on by 
Professor Henry, and was duly announced at the 
first meeting. At the following, and each succeed- 
ing lecture, Mr. Pierpont regularly made the same 
announcement. These gatherings were largely 
attended and very enthusiastic ; and as the anti- 
slavery tide constantly grew stronger, the weekly 
announcement that " the Smithsonian Institute 
desires it to be distinctly understood that it is not 
to be held responsible for the utterances of the 
speakers," awakened the sense of the ludicrous, 
and called forth rounds of applause and explo- 
sions of laughter by the audience, in front of which 
Professor Henry was seated. Each meeting thus 
began with a frolic of good humor, which Mr. 
24 



370 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

Pierpont evidently enjoyed, for he made his an- 
nouncement with a gravity which naturally pro- 
voked the mirth which followed. These meetings 
were addressed by Wendell Phillips, Gerrit Smith, 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Dr. Brownson, and other 
notable men, and were enjoyed as a sort of jubilee 
by the men and women who attended them. 

The services in the Hall of Representatives each 
Sabbath formed the fitting counterpart of these 
proceedings The crowds in attendance filled 
every part of the floor and galleries, and were full 
of enthusiasm. The most terrific arraignment of 
slavery I ever listened to was by Rev. Dr. George 
B. Cheever, in the course of these services. He was 
a man of great ability, unquenchable zeal, fervid 
eloquence, and an Old Testament Christian who 
was sometimes called the Prophet Isaiah of the 
anti-slavery cause. He carried his religion coura- 
geously into politics, and while arraigning slavery 
as the grand rebel, he also severely criticised the 
management of the war and the Border State pol- 
icy of the President. The most pronounced anti- 
slavery sermons were also preached in the Capital 
by Dr. Boynton, Mr. Channing and others, while 
the Hutchinson family occasionally entertained the 
public with their anti-slavery songs. All this 
must have been sufficiently shocking to the slave- 
holding politics and theology of the city, whose 
slumbers were thus rudely disturbed. 

There was a peculiar fascination about life in 



CONCLUDING NOTES. 37 I 

Washington during the war. The city itself was 
unattractive. Its ragged appearance, wretched 
streets, and sanitary condition were the reproach of 
its citizens, who could have had no dream of the 
Washington of to-day ; but it was a great military 
as well as political center. Our troops were pour- 
ing in from every loyal State, and the drum-beat 
was heard night and day, while the political and 
social element hitherto in the ascendant, was com- 
pletely submerged by the great flood from the 
North. The city was surrounded, and in part oc- 
cupied by hospitals, and for a time many of the 
principal churches were surrendered to the use of 
our sick and wounded soldiers, whose numbers 
were fearfully swelled after each great battle. The 
imminent peril to which the Capital was repeatedly 
exposed, and the constantly changing fortunes of 
the war, added greatly to the interest of the crisis, 
and marked the alternations of hope and fear 
among the friends and enemies of the Union. But 
notwithstanding the seriousness of the times, there 
was a goodly measure of real social life. Human 
nature demanded some relaxation from the dread- 
ful strain and burden of the great conflict, and this 
was partially found in the levees of the President 
and Cabinet ministers, and the receptions of the 
Speaker, which were largely attended and greatly 
enjoyed ; and this enjoyment was doubtless much 
enhanced by the peculiar bond of union and feel- 
ing of brotherhood which the state of the country 



372 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

awakened among its friends. The most pleasant 
of these occasions, however, were the weekly re- 
ceptions of the Speaker. Those of Speaker Grow 
were somewhat marred, and sometimes interrupted, 
by his failing health, but the receptions of Mr. 
Colfax were singularly delightful. He discharged 
the duties of his great office with marked ability 
and fairness, and was personally very popular ; and 
there always gathered about him on these occasions 
an assemblage of charming and congenial people, 
whose genuine cordiality was a rebuke to the insin- 
cerity so often witnessed in social life. 

But I need not further pursue these personal de- 
tails, nor linger over the by-gones of a grand epoch. 
We have entered upon a new dispensation. The 
withdrawal of the slavery question from the strife of 
parties has changed the face of our politics as com- 
pletely as did its introduction. The transition 
from an abnormal and revolutionary period to the 
regular and orderly administration of affairs, has 
been as remarkable as the intervention of the great 
question which eclipsed every other till it com- 
pelled its own solution. Although this transition 
has given birth to an era of "slack-water politics," 
it has gradually brought the country face to face 
with new problems, some of which are quite as 
vital to the existence and welfare of the Republic 
as those which have taxed the statesmanship of the 
past. The tyranny of industrial domination, which 
borrows its life from the alliance of concentrated 



CONCLUDING NOTES. 373 

capital with labor-saving machincr\', must be over- 
thrown. Commercial feudalism, wielding its power 
through the machinery of great corporations which 
are practically endowed with life offices and the 
right of hereditary succession and control the mak- 
ers and expounders of our laws, must be subor- 
dinated to the Vv'ill of the people. The system of 
agricultural serfdom called Land Monopoly, which 
is now putting on new forms of danger in the rapid 
multiplication of great estates and the purchase of 
vast bodies of lands by foreign capitalists, must be 
resisted as a still more formidable foe of demo- 
cratic Government. The legalized robbery now 
carried on in the n^me of Protection to American 
labor must be overthrown. The system of spoils 
and plunder must also be destroyed, in order that 
freedom itself may be rescued from the perilous 
activities quickened into life by its own spirit, and 
the conduct of public affairs inspired by the great 
moralities which dignify private life. 

These are the problems which appeal to the 
present generation, and especially to the honorable 
ambition of young men now entering upon public 
life. Their solution is certain, because they are di- 
rectly in the path of progress, and progress is a law ; 
but whether it shall be heralded by the kindly 
agencies of peace or the harsh power of war, must 
depend upon the wise and timely use of oppor- 
tunities. The result is certain, since justice can 
not finally be defeated ; but the circumstances of 



374 POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

the struggle and the cost of its triumph are com- 
mitted to the people, who can scarcely fail to find 
both instruction and warning in the story of the 
anti-slavery conflict. 



INDEX. 



ABOLITIONISTS, 102, 223; their de- 
scent upon Washington, 3f.9. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 57,100; 
candidate for the presidency, 338, 
339. 340. 

Adams, Dr. Nehemiah. 97. 

Adams, John Quincy, strong lan- 
guage of, 26; his trial, 26; his 
opinion of General Cass, 27 ; of 
Webster, 62; reference to, 351. 

Allen, Charles, 55. 73, 82, 101, 105, 118. 

Allen, William, 39. 

Ames. Oakes, 3:;8. 

Anthony, Henry B., 354. 

Anti-slavery critics of Mr. Lincoln, 
221, 222. 

Artjus, the Albany, 184. 

Arnold, Isaac N., 354. 

Ashley, James M., 75, 234. 236; his 
action respecting the XHI Con- 
stitutional Amendment, 250 ; ref- 
erence to, 292. },^,^ 

Ashmun, George, 75. 

Bailky. Du. Gamaliel, 74, 112. 

Baker, Edward D., 109, a54, 357, 

Banks, Nathaniel P , 14t) ; nominat- 
ed for president by Know-Noth- 
ings, 151; elected speaker, 14r); 
personal appearance of, 361. 

Barnwell, Robert. 84. 

Bayard, Thomas F., 351, 358. 

Bayly, Thomas H., 75. 

Beecher, Henry ^^■ard, 231. 

Bell, John, 111; nominated for pres- 
ident, 176. 



Benton. Thomas H., 39, 8J ; his fra- 
cas with Foote, 90. 91, 92, 93; his 
character, 92. 

Berrien, John McPherson. 111. 

Bigger. Samuel, 116. 

Bingham, John A., 146, 234, 235, 354 ; 
his controversy with Butler, 362. 

Bird, F. W., 57. 

Birney, James G., nominated for 
the presidency, 24; his vote in 
1844, 41. 

Blaine, James G., his quarrel with 
Conkling, 275, 276, 277; his action 
as to reconstruction and negro 
suffrage, 308; sketch of, 359, 360. 

Blair, Aastin, ::61. 

Blair, Francis P., 148. 

Blair, Francis P., jr.. 212; his "Broad- 
head letter," 320; reference to, 
339, 354. 

Blair, Montgomery, retirement 
from the cabinet, 248. 

Bliss, Philemon, 146. 

Booth, Sherman M., 147. 

Bout well, George S., speech on the 
impeachment of President John- 
son, 314, 315; reference to, 354, 
364. 

Boynton, Rev. Dr., 370. 

Bradburn. George, 119. 

Breckenridge, John C, nominated 
for vice-president,151; nominated 
for president. 170. 

Bright, John, 240 

Bright. Jesse D., 39, 354. 

Brisbane, Wm. Henry, 316 



(375) 



37^ 



INDEX. 



Brown, Albert G., 80, 152. 

Brown, B. Gratz, nominated for 
vice-president, 338, 339; reference 
to, 354, 358. 

Brown, John, in Virginia. 168. 

Brown, Wm. J., 74, 75. 7G, 117. 

Brooks, James, 16, 63, 365, 354. 

Brough, Governor, 234. 

Browning, O. H., 354. 

Brownsoii, Dr.. 370. 

Bryant, Wm. C, 34,125, 231. 

Buchanan, Jamfes, 39, 120, 152; 
nominated for president in 1856, 
157; warfare against, 190, 191; his 
character, 191, 192, 193; close of 
his administration, 183. 

Buekalew, Charles R., 354, 358. 

Buffalo Convention, 56. 57, 58, 59, 60. 

Buffington, James, 146. 

Bull Run. battle of, 196 197. 

Burliiigame, Anson, 146. 

Burns. Anthony, 147. 

Burnside, Ambrose E., 224, 229, 
235. 

Butler, Benjamin F., of New York, 
56. 

Butler. Benjamin F., of Massachu- 
setts, his testimony on the Fort 
Fisher expedition, 249 ; reference 
to, 257, 354 ; his controversy with 
Bingham, 362 ; with Cox, 363. 

Butler, A. P., 106, 107. 

Calhoun, John C, his character, 
87; reference to, 92, 107. 111. 

California, attempt to divide, 170 ; 
her dealings with the public 
lands, 298 ; bill to quiet land titles 
in, 298, 299, 300 ; action of the del- 
egation on, 300, 301. 

Cameron, Simon, 182 ; his anti- 
slavery war policy, 200 ; reference 

• to, 202, :«4. 

Cam.paign of 1856, 152. 153, 154, 155. 

Campaign of 1860, 174, 175, 176, 177- 

Campbell. L. D., 83. 

Gary, Phebe, 231. 



Carpenter, Mati H., 354, 358. 

Cass, General Lewis, his effort to 
shield the foreign slave trade 27 ; 
a candidate for the presidency in 
1844, 33; the Wilmot Proviso and 
the "Nicholson letter,' 47, 48; 
nomination in 1848, 51; his de- 
feat, 67, 70. 79,119, 132. 

Chandler, Zachariah,^54, 201, 354. 

Channing, Dr.. letter to Clay. 23. 

Channing, Rev. Wm. H., 370. 

Chase, Salmon P., 68, 71. 107 ; with- 
drawal from the Free Soil party, 
119 ; nominated for Governor of 
Ohio, 144; deprecates policy of 
coercion, 190; reference to, 195, 
202; his opinion respecting the 
policy of emancipation by proc- 
lamation, -28 ; movement to nom- 
inate him for the presidency, 
237; appointed chief justice, 
248; his opinion about mineral 
lands, 286; cruel injustice to, 
318, 319 ; his separation from the 
Republican party, 332, 33S, 350. 

Cheever, Rev. Dr. George B., his re- 
markable sermons, 370. 

Child, Mrs. L. Maria, 169. 

Choate, Rufus, 39. i 

Cincinnati Gazette, 167;Nj 

Clay, Cassius M., 37 ; fg^ds an an- 
ti-slavery paper in Kentucky, 44; 
reference to, 119, 125, '126, 127. 

Clay, Henry, sacrificed by his 
friends, 13 ; speech on abolition- 
is. a, 23; condemned Harrison's 
inaugural message, 2.") ; his "Men- 
denhall speech," 27; nomina- 
tion in 1844.30; his position on 
Texas annexation, 36 ; his defeat 
and its causes, 40, 41, 42, 43 ; his 
abandonment by the Whigs in 
1848,54,55- reference to, 69, 81, 
83, 9-', 93, 102, 111: extract from 
speech, 84; "Omnibus bill," 85. 

Clemens, Jeremiah, 107. 



INDEX. 



377 



Cllngman. Thomas L , 80. 

Cobb. Howell, 77, 78, 104, 111. 

Cofl&n. Elijah, 27. 

Colfax, Schuyler. 146, '2:5G. 243. 3;j4. 
361 : his receptions. ;171, 37i;. 

Collamer, Jacob, 334, 355. 

(^ompromi.sc measures, 94, 95; 
pledge of politicians to support, 
101 : reference to, 102, 130. 

Compromise. Crittenden. 185. 

Conduct of the War, committee on 
thi'. its report, 230, 231; visits 
Richmond, 252, 253,254; visit to 
City P int. 249 : its final report, 
262,263; its usefulness, 262, -63; 
i s Interview with I'resident 
Johnson. 257: its meeting witli 
Secretary Stanton, 2 0. 212 ; visit 
to Fort Pillow, 238. 239 ; confer- 
ence with the President, 201, 202. 

Confiscation, first act of, 198 ; later 
act, 219. 

Conkling, Roscoe. his controversy 
with Blaine, 275, 276, 277 ; refer- 
ence to, 231, 334, 354. 358, 359. 

Conness, John, 287, 291. 

Constitutional amendment, the 
XIII; its final adoption, 249,250, 
251, 252. 

Constitutional amendment, the 
XIV, characterized, 272, 273; its 
rejt-'Ction by the rebellious States, 
304. 

Convention, Cleveland, 248. 

Convention, Republican National. 
242. 

Corwin, Thomas. ;;9, 111. 

Covode, John, 146. 201. 

Cox, S. s., 354; his content with 
Butler, 363 

Cravens, James II., 39, 116. 

Crawford. Martin J., 171. 

Cresswell, J> hii A. J., 354. 

Crittenden, John J , 354 

Cuba, designs on, 169. 

Curtin, Andrew G., 177. 

Curtis. George Ticknor, 191. 

Cushing, Caleb, 173. 



Dallas, George M., 33. 

Davis, David, 338. 

Davis, Garret, 250, ?54, 357, 358. 

Davis, Henry Winter, 246. 217, 256; 
his power in debate, 300. 

Davis, Jefferson. 80, 83, 106, 168, 
172. 

Davis, John W., 39. 

Dawes. Henry L.. 354. 

Dayton, Wm. L.,111; nomination 
for vice-president, 150. 

De Jarnette, Daniel C, 171. 

Deming, Henry C , 354, 363. 

Democratic platform of 1856, 15l. 

De Witt, Alexander. 135. 

Dickinson, Daniel S., 39. 

Dix, John A., 125. 

Donelson, Andrew J., nominated 
for vice-president, 157. 

Donnelly, Ignatius, his controversy 
with Washburne, 367. 868. 

Doolittle, James R., 354, 357. 

Douglas, Stephen A., 108 120; prop- 
osition to repeal the :Missouri 
compromise. 135; his defection, 
165, 166, 167. 168; his removal from 
chairmanship of committee on 
Territories, 172; his canvass on 
the stump, 178. 

Douglass, Frederick, 65, 303. 

Dred Scott decision, 159; charac- 
terized, 159;"^|MK^erred to, 174. 

Dunn, Wm. Mclv^, 242, 243. 

Dunn George G., 39. 

Durkee, Charles, 73, 74, 118, 146. 

ED^roxDS, George F., 354, 357. 
Elder, Dr. Wm., 99. 
Eldridge, Charles A.. 250. 
Emerson Ralph Waldo, 370. 
English Bill, 162. 
Enquirer, Richmond, 188. 
Everett, Edward, nominated for 

vice-president, 176. 
Ewing, Thomas, 39 111,283. 

Fee. John G.. 126, 127. 173. 
Ferry, Orris S., 354. 



57^ 



INDEX. 



Feseuden, Wm. Pitt, 212, 315, 316; 
injustice to. 318 ; reference to, 354. 

Field. David Dudley, 56,125. 

Fillmore, Millard, 93,105. 121: nomi- 
nated for president, 151, 283. 

Fitch, Graham N., 117. 

Foote, Henry S., his quarrel with 
Benton, 91, 92; called " Hangman 
Foote," and why. 92. 

Forney, John W., 78, 196. 

Foster, Lafayette S., 146. 

Fowler, Joseph S., 317. 

Freeman, John, his trial as a fugi- 
tive slave. 33. 134. 

Free Press, Detroit, 199. 

Free Soil Party, organized, 55, 56; 
its national convention in 1852, 
122, 123; nominations, 123, 124. 

Free Soilers, 112; their position, 137. 

Frelinghuysen, Theodore, 30. 

Fremont, John C, his nomination 
for president, 150; his proclama- 
tion of emancipation, 198, 199: 
nominated for president, 238; 
reference to, 230, 2H1, 248. 

Fry, General. 275. 

Fugitive Slave act, 95, 101, 116, 147, 
163. 

Furness, Dr. Wm. H., 29. 

Galloway, Samuel, 146. 

Garfield, James A., 354; first ap- 
pearance in Congress, 360, 361. 

Garner, Margaret, 147. 

Garnett, Rev. Henry Highland, 252. 

Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, 22, 100. 

Gates, Seth M., 61. 

Gentry, Merideth P. , 125. 

Gerrymandering in Indiana 303. 

Gibson, Colonel, his oratory, 235. 

Giddiugs, Joshua R., censure of, 26; 
his tract on slavery, 31; reference 
to, 38, 57, 61. 72, 74, 82, 111, 118, 119, 
148, 149; reward offered for kid- 
napping, 173. 

Glossbrenner, Adam J., 78. 



Godey's Lady's Book, 98. 

Gold-bearing lands, legislation con- 
cerning, 283, 284, i85, 286, 287, 288, 
289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296. 

Gooch, Daniel W., 201. 

Goo dell, William, 102. 

Grant, Ulysses S., 105, 247, 248, 249; 
sketch of, 3 19; nominated for 
presiden', 320; overwhelming 
election, 349 ; inaugural message 
and cabinet. 326, 327 ; character 
of his administration. 330, 331. 

Greeley, Horace, his campaign organ 
in 1840, 12 ; his statement respect- 
ing the presidential vote of 1844, 
42 ; his opinion of General Tay- 
lor's nomination, 55 ; his connec- 
tion with the homestead policy. 
103; referred to, 125; speech in 
the Pittsburg convention, 148; 
his " prayer of twenty millions," 
220, 221 ; quoted, 818 ; his separa- 
tion from the Republican parly, 
332 ; his nomination for prei^ident, 
339 ; opposition to, 340 ; his defeat 
and its causes, 347, 348 ; his dCi.th, 
351, 352 ; vindication of the Liber- 
als, 349, 350. 

Grimes, James W., 315, 316; injus- 
tice to, 318 ; reference to, 354. 

Grow, Galusha A., 146, 354, 372. 

Hale, John P., elected senator, 45; 
nominated for president, 50, 71, 
84, 107 ; vote for in 1852, 129 ; ref- 
erence to, 132, 354. 

Halleck, General, 200. 

Hamlin, Hannibal, 109, 177, 354. 

Hannegan, Edward A., 39. 

Harlan. Aaron, 146. 

Harlan, James, 146, 354, 357. 

Harpers Jour, of Civilization, f8. 

Harris, Ira, 354. 

Harrison, William Henry, Whig 
nominee for president in 1840, 11 ; 
his political position and letter 



INDEX. 



379 



to Harmer, Denny, and Sherrod 
Williams, 12; his character, 15; 
abuse and dofamatiou of. by the 
Democrats, 15, 16 ; speech at Day- 
ton, 17; his hatred of abolition- 
ism, 24. 25. 

Hayes. Rutherford B.. 293. 

Helper, Hinton Rowan, 171. 

Henderson, John B., 316, 354, 357. 

Hendricks, Thomas A., 250, 354. 
358. 

Henley, Thomas J., 39. 

Henry, Prof. Joseph, 369. 

Herald, New York, 1S4. 199, 

Hickman. John. 140,354, 362. 

Hicks, Thomas H., 354. 

Ilildreth, Richard, 102. 

Holman. Wm. S.. 3.54, 367. 

Holt, Joseph, 173. 

Homestead act, passage of. 216; its 
defects, 216, 217, 218 ; proposal to 
extend it to forfeited and con- 
fiscated lands. 238. 

Hooker, General Joseph, 224. 

Hooker, Mr., defense of slavery, 97. 

Howard, Tilghman A., 39. 

Howard, Jacob M., 354, 357. 

Howe, John W., 73, 118. 

Howe, Timothy O., his course to- 
ward Chief Justice Cliase. 3i9. 

Houston, Samuel, 108. 

Hunt, Washington, 63. 

Hunter. General, his anti-slavery 
order, 218. 

Hutchins, Jolin, 236. 

Hutchinson Family, 370. 

Hutchings, J. M., his pre-emption 
in Yosemite valley, 327. 

Illinois Central Railway, 29. 
Indiana, her black laws. 115. 
Indianapolis Journal, 167; extract 
from, 2ti8 ; reference to, 335. 

Jackson, Andrew, 32, 105. 
Jay, Wm., 102. 



Jefferson, Thomas, 192, 193, 325. 

Jenckes.Thomas A., his bill for the 
reform of the civil service, 323. 
324; reference to. 354. 

Jolinson,' Andrew, his homestead 
bill, 103, 104 ; reference to, 201 ; 
nominated for vice-president, 
243; his inauguration, 255; his 
talk about the rebel leaders, 257 ; 
his breach with Congress, 273, 
274; his veto of the Freedmen's 
Bureau bill, and angry speech. 
274 ; his veto of the reconstruc- 
tion bill, 310, 311 ; vote on im- 
peachment of, 312, 313 ; popular 
feeling against, 314; injustice to, 
318 ; reference to, 354. 

Johnson, Herschel V., nominated 
with Douglas, 175. 

Johnson. Reverdy. 354 

Jones, Geo. W., 125. 

Jones. Joseph O., 129. 

Journal, Albany Evening, 184. 

Julian, Geo. \V., his vote for Gen- 
eral Harrison, 11, 12; supports 
Clay in 1844, 37, 38; his defense of 
the Liberty party, 42, 43; first 
speech on the slavery question. 
88; elector for Van Buren and. 
Adams, 65; his account of the 
Buffalo convention, 56, 57, 58, 59,. 
60,6'; of the campaign of 1848, 
65, 66, 67; first re-election to Con- 
gress. 71; his visit to .Boston, 100; 
candidate for re-election to Con- 
gress inl851. 116, 117,118; nomi- 
nated for vice-president, 126, 124; 
canvass in Kentucky with Mr. 
Clay, 125, 126, 127; encounter with 
mob law in Indiana, 128, 129; 
chairman of committee on organ- 
ization in first Republican na- 
tional convention, 149; connec- 
tion with fugitive slave case In 
Indiana, 163, 164; visit to Mr. Lin- 
coln, 181; appointed a member of 



38o 



INDEX. 



Committee on the Conduct of the 
War, 20i; resolution proposing 
amendment of the Fugitive Slave 
act, 214, 215; speech on tlie policy 
of the war, 215; his canvass for 
re-election to Congress in 1862, 
215, 216; his connection with the 
homestead law, 216; his resolution 
in favor of repealing the Fugi- 
tive Slave act, 218; interviews 
with the president, 218, 219, 220, 
229, 230; with General Burnside, 
225; visit to Gerrit Smith, 231; his 
hill for the repeal of the Fugitive 
Slave law, 236, 237; campaign in 
Ohio and Iowa, 234, 235,236; ap- 
pointed chairman of Committee 
on Public Lands. 226 ; his hill to 
extend the homestead laAV to for- 
feited and confisca'ed land?, 238 ; 
his altercation with Mr. Mallory, 
241, 24.: ; interviews with Mr. Lin- 
coln, 244, 245; his espousal of ne- 
gro suffrage, 263, 261, 265, 26t>, 267, 
268; his reply to Governor Mor- 
ton, 268, 269 ; introduction of 
Eight Hour bill, 274, 275 ; his op- 
position to Lmd bounties, 277, 
278,279, 280; his bill providing 
bounty in money and accompa- 
nying report, 279, 280; his bill 
providing for the sale of mineral 
lands, and report, 285, 28G, 287, 
288, 289, 290, 291, •- 92 ; resolution 
introduced by, and incidents, 
311,312; re-nomination for Con- 
gress, 320, 321; review of his work 
on the stump, 322 ; introduction of 
XVI Amendment to the Consti- 
tution, 324, 325 ; visit to Califor- 
nia, 327; separation from the Re- 
publican party, 325, 326 ; his pro- 
posed "New Departure," 332, 333, 
334; his visit to Greeley, 332; his 
account of the ( incinnati con- 
vention, 337 338. 339, :^0, 311: his 
canvass for Greeley, 341, :;42, 343, 



344, 345, 346, 347, 34S; visit to Chief 
Justice Chase and Charles Sum- 
ner, 3"0. 351; comments on the 
death of Greeley, 351,352. 

Kake, Judge, 85, 99, 117. 

Kansas, admission refused, 170 

Keitt, Lawrence M., 161, 171 

Kelly, Wm. D., 354; his power of 
voice, 364, 365. 

Kendall, Amos, 23. 

Kennedy. Andrew. 116. 

Kernan, Francis, 241. 

Kerr, Michael C, 354, 365. 

King, Preston, 56,73, 111, 118,125. 

King, John A. 148. 

Know-Nothing party, the forma- 
tion of, 140 its character, 140, 
141, 142; reference to, 173, 

LA>fD Reformers, 103. 

Lane, Henry S., 39, 116, 177, 244, 354^ 
357. 

Lane, Joseph, nominated for vice- 
president, 176. 

Law, John, 89. 

League, National Union, its resolu- 
tion in favor of confiscation of 
rebel lands, 242. 

Leavitt, Joshua, 57 ; speech of, 60. 

Lecompton Constitution, 160. 161. 

Lee, General, 248. 

Legislation as to lead and copper 
lands, 281,282, 2 3. 

Lewis, Samuel, 57, 119, 124. 

Liberty party defended, 42, 43. 

Lincoln, Abraham, his joint debate 
with 1 ouglas, 168; nominated for 
president, 177; personal descrip- 
tion of. 182; inauguration of, 187, 
188 his encoimter with the oflSce- 
seekers, 193, 194; anecdote con- 
cerning, 211 ; republican opposi- 
tion to, 220, 238 ; his reply to Gree- 
ley, 221; opposed to issuing the 
Proclamation of Emancipation, 



INDEX. 



;3i 



and in favor of colonizing the 
negroes, 226. 227; opposition to, 
247; letter to A. G. Hodges, 239, 
240 ; nomination for president in 
1864, 243 ; feeling against him, 243, 
244; his last utterances on recon- 
struction, 256; his assassination, 
255, 250 ; his funeral, 258. 

Literary World, US. 

Log cabin songs, 18, 19, 20, 21. . 

Lord, Rev. Dr., 97. 

Lovejoy, Elijah P., 2_>. 

l.ovejoy, Owen, 148; his contest 
with Wickliffe. 300. 

Lundy, Benj , his newspaper, 22. 

^Mallory, RoBiiiiTi his angry as- 
sault, 241, 242 ; reference to. 250. 

Mann, Horace, 111, 118. 

Mansfield, General. 197. 

Marshall, Humphrey, 111. 

Marshall, Joseph G., 89. 

-Marshall, Thomas F., 39. 

Marcy, Wm. L.. 120 

Martineau, Harriet, 112. 324, 325. 

Mason, James M., Ill, 168. 

Matthews, Stanley, 3 8, 310 

McKim, J. Miller, 29. 

McClellan, General George B., 201. 
203, 204, 205, 206. 209, 210, 213, 217. 

McCrary. Geo. W., 354. 

McCulh ugh, Hugli, 286. 

McDonald, Joseph E., 117, 

McDougall, James A., 2.'0. 

McDowell, James, 111. 

McGaughey, lidward W., 117. 

McMullen. Fayette. 254. 

Mead, Richard K, 109. 

Mendenhall, Mr., 37. 

Mercury. Charleston, 188. 

Millson, Johns., 17!. 

Military bill. 306, 307, BOS. 

Mineral lands, 281. 

Morton, Oliver P., 118, 155, 167: his 
speech to President Johnson on 
Reconstruction, 260, 201, 262 ; his 



opposition to negro suflFrage, 263» 
264; his Richmond speech against* 
264, 26'), 260, 267. 208, 269; his char- 
acter, 209, 270; his personal hostil- 
ity, 270 271 ; reference to, 302, 303, 
334, 335, 312, 334, 358. 359. 

Morgan, Edwin D , 351. 

Morgan, John, his raid into Indi- 
ana, 232. 233. 

Morrill, Lott M,. 354. 

Mott, Lucretia, 99, 23L 

National Era, 102, 143 

National Convention, Democratic, 
174, 175, 176. 

National Convention, Republican, 
176, 177. 

Nation, The. 340. 

Negro Suffrage, established in the 
District of Columbia, 271, 272. 

New England States, their land 
laAvs, 296, 297. 

Nevada, legislative report on min- 
eral lands, 289, 290, 291. 

Ni black, Wm. E, 354. 

Nye, James W.. 56. 

Odell, Moses F , 201. 

Olin, Abraham B.. 301. 

Orr, James L., 111. 

Orth, Godlove S., 354. 

Osborn, Charles, his anti-slavery 

newspaper. 22. 
Otto, Wm. T., 229. 

Palfrey, Dr., 100. 

Parker, Samuel W., 39 ; his politi- 
cal somer.sault, 117. 

Parker, Theodore, 100. 

Peace Congress, 185, 186, 

Pendleton, Geo. H., 250 354, 365. 

Petit, John, 16L 

Phillips, Stephen C, 55. 

Phillips, Wendell, first meeting 
with, 101, 307. 

Pierrpont, Rev. John, 309. 



382 



INDEX. 



Pierce, Franklin, nominated for 
president, 120; inauguration of, 
134, 135. 

Pike, Frederick A , 363. 

Polk, James K., his nomination 
for president, 33; his Kane letter, 
35; his war message, 46. 

Pomeroy, Samuel C, 226, 227; his 
circular, 237. 

Porter, Admiral, 253, 

Post, Boston, 199. 

Potomac, army of, the division into 
corps, 204, 205. 

Potter, John F., 354; his challenge 
to fight Pvoger A. Pryor, 362, 363. 

Pre-emption, right of, opinion of 
attorney general on, 299, 300; de- 
cision of supreme court on, 301. 

Prentiss. S. S., 39. 

Preston W. C, 39. 

Problems of the future, 373, 374. 

Proclamation of emancipation, 
preliminary, 222; final, 226. 227. 

Proffitt, George H., 39. 

Proviso, Wilmot, first introduction 
of, 47; reference to, 79, 135. 

Pryor, Roger A., 171. 

Public Lands, committee on the. 
its report against land bounties, 
279, 280; its bill providing for the 
sale of mineral lands, 286, 291. 

Randall, Samuel J., 354, 365, 

Rantoul, Robert, 118, 125. 

Raymond, Henry J., his speech on 
reconstruction, 307, 354, 363. 

Rayner, Kennetb, 151. 

Reconstruction, committee on, 272; 
opposition to hasty, 305, 306; ter- 
ritorial plan of, 305. 

Reform, Civil Service, 244. 

Remelin, Charles, speech in the 
Pittsburg convention, 149. 

Republican party, the format-ion 
of, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 150 ; 
its mission accomplished, 330; its 



demoralization, 330, 331, 332. 
Rhett. Robert B., 84. 
Richardson, Wm. A., 354. 
Riddle, Geo. R., 250. 
Robinson, Ji^hn L., 39. 
Rollins, James S.,351, 363 
Root, Joseph M., 73. 
Ross, James, 111. 
Ross, Edmund G., 317. 

Salsbury, Willard, 354. 

Scott, General Winfield, 83; nomi- 
nated for president, 121 ; refer- 
ence to, 187; unbounded confi- 
dence in, 196. 
i Schenck, Robert C, his land boun- 
I ty bill, 280; reference to, 314, 
354. 

Schurz, Carl, 334, 339, 354, 358, 359. 

Sentinel, The. State organ of Indi- 
ana Democrats, 117, 118. 

Seward, Wm. H., his speech in 
Cleveland, 64; reference to, 93. 
108, 111 ; reward offered for his 
head, 173 ; anti-slavery distruslpf, 
195 ; speech in the Senate, ISS^l^ 
remarkable utterances, 189, 1; ; 
reference to, 213, 214; desertion 
from the Republican party, 332. 

Seymour, Horatio, 320. 

Shellabarger, &^amuel, his action 
respecting negro suffrage, 308 \ 
reference to, 354, 359. 

Sherman, John, 146, 354, 359. 

Sherman, General, his capitulation 
with General Johnson, 2>7, 258. 

Shield^, General James, 108. 

Silver Grey Whigs, 173, 174. 

Slavery, first publication against, 
22, 23; political action against' 
24, 25 ; anti-slavery progress, 25' 
2G, 27, 2S, 29 ; in the presidential 

Ccanva?sofl844, 31, 32, 33,34,35, 
36, 37, 38, 41 ; opposition to aboli- 
tionism, 42, 43, 44. 45 ; in the can- 
vass of 1848, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 



^ - J{ 



INDEX. 



383 



57,58,59, 60, 61, (>2, 63; abiase of 
anti-slavery men, 65, 66, 67; at- 
tempt to settle by compromise. 
69. 70, 71, 79, 80; in the Territo- 
ries, 8i, 87; anti-slavery and 
pro-slavery publications, 97, 98, 
102; black codes of Indiana and 
Illinois, 115; anti-slavery prog- 
ress, 116, 117, 118, 119. 122, 129, 
ISO; in the Thirty-third Con- 
gress, 13'), 136, 137, 13S; in the 
rhirtj'-fourth Ccmgress, 146, 150, 
i51, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156; anti- 
slavery progress, 158, 159, 160, 
161; in the Thirty-sixth Con- 
gress, 68, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173 ; 
in the canvass of 1860, 176. 177, 
178, 179, 180; slavery and the war. 
184, 185, 186; apologetic action 
of Congress toward, 197, 198 ; 
anti-slavery criticism of the 
Presitient, 221, 1:22 ; slavery and 
confiscation, 242, 245, 246 ; con- 
stitutional amendment abolish- 
ing, 249, 250, 251, 252 ; prolonged 
struggle against, 321, 322 ; slav- 
ery and the Liberal Republicans, 
343.344,345, 346, 347; effect 01 its 
introduction into politics, 353 
355; effect of its withdrawal from 
politics, 372 ; lesson of the anti- 
slavery conflict, 373, 374. 

Slave Trade, African, 169. 

Smiih, Caleb B., 182, 214; favors 
ccjlonization, 226, 227 ; reference 
to, 284. 

Smith, Gerritt, 135, 231. 370. 

Smith, Oliver H., 39. 

Soule, Pierre, 108, 109. 

Southern Homestead bill, passage 
of, 240. 

Stanton, Edwin M., appointed 
secretary of war, 204 : conference 
with, 210 : hostility to General 
McClellan, 210 : anecdote of, 2li. 
212; estrangement between and 



General Sherman, 258 ; removed 
from office, 313. 

Stanton, Benjamin, 146. 

Stanton, Henry B., 57. 

Stevens, Thaddeus. his reply to 
Meade, 109, 110; reply to Ross, 110; 
reference to, 118, 306 ; his power 
in debate and leadership, 308, 309 
310 ; chairman of committee on 
articles ot impeachment, 313; 
personal description of, 313, 314. 

Stephens, Alexander H., 49, 54, 109, 
111, 125. 

Stewar;, A. T., 326. 

Stewart, Wm. T., 287, 291. 

Stockton, Commodore, 151. 

Stuart, Rev. Moses, 97. 

Sumner, Charles, 71, 100, 102,118; 
his motion to repeal the Fugitive 
Slave act, 119 ; his speech on the 
Barbarism of Slavery, 170; reler- 
ence to, 195, 252, 263, 326 ; his sep- 
aration from the Republican 
party, 322, 334 ; his desertion by 
his political friends, 350; refer- 
ence to, 354. 

Sumner, General, 224, 356. 

Surratt, Mrs., 362. 

Suscol Ranch, rights of settlers 
on, 299, 300, 301. 

Swamp Land act, 98, 99. 

Swariwout, Samuel, 14. 

Taney, Chief Justice, 159. 
Taylor, Zachary, 46 ; his letters. 53, 

54; nominated for president, 55 ; 

his death, 93; administration, 105. 
Temperance, 105, 106 ; the question 

considered, 138. 139. 
Thompson, Richard W., 39, 116. 
Thompson, James, engineers the 

Fugitive Slave bill, 96. 
Thurraan, Allen G., 354, 358. 
Tilden, Samuel J., 56, 125. 
Tilton, Theodore, 303. 
Times, The Chicago, 199. 



384 



INDEX. 



Toombs, Robert, 81, 109, 111, 125. 

Townsend, Dr. Jacob, 93. 

Tovvnsend, Norton S., 118. 

Tribune, The New York, 166. 14-3, 
184; its course on the right of Se- 
cession, 184. 

Trumbull. Lyman, 146: author of 
XIII Constitutional Amendment, 
150; reference to, 318, 338, 339, 354, 
356. 

Tuck, Amos, 45, 73, 118. 

Turner, Nat., 22. 

Tyler, John, his political charac- 
ter, 13. 

VallajSDINcham:, 0. L., 235, :^4, 
365, 366. 

Van Buren, Martin, Whig estimate 
of, 11, 12; his devotion to slavery, 
24; letter on annexation, 32; de- 
feated by Polk in 1841, 33; nomi- 
nation at Buftalo, 56, 57, 58, 59; 
reference to, 70. 71, 116, 125. 132 

Van Wyck, Charles II., 361. 

Vinton, Samuel F., 111. 

Von Hoist, Professor, 270. 

Voorhees, Daniel W., 250, 254. 

Wade, Benjamin F.. 135, 201, 220, 
239, 246, 254, 255, 263, 319, 354, 355. 

Wade, Edvi^ard, 135. 

Wallace, Dav'd, 116, 164. 

Walker, Robert J.. 39. 

Walker, Isaac P., 103. 

Washburne, Elihu B., 146, 354; his 
controversy v/ith Donnelly, 366. 



Washington, its condition during 
the war, 370, 371, 372. 

Watson, Peter H., 211. 

Webster, Daniel, 39, 71; hLs seventh 
of ]SIarch speech, 86. 87; ridicules 
the higher law, 118; candidate 
for president, 121, 12), 132. 

Weed, Thurlow, his opposition to 
the homestead law, 278, ' 

Weitzel, General, 253. 

Whaley, Kellian V., 361. 

Whig, The Richmond, 188. 

Whig party, surrender of, 122. 129. 

Whitcomb, J?mes, 39. 

White, Joseph L., 39, 57, 71. 

Whiting, William. 211, 245, 

Whitiier, songs of, 210. 

Wick, William W., 39. 

Wilmot, David, introduces his pro- 
viso, 47; reference to, 74, 76, 95. 

Wilson, Henry, his treatment of 
Know-Nothingism, 55. 143; refer- 
ence to. 146, 212, 354, 357. 

Wilson, James F., 354, 364. 

Winthrop. Robert C, 109. 

Wise, Henry A., 152. 

Woodbury, General, 124. 

Wooden guns, 208. 

Wood, Fernando, 256. 

Woods, W. L., 255. 

Woodward, Geo. W., 354. 

Worth, Rev. Daniel. 173. 

Wright, Joseph A., 39. 

Wright, Silas, 39, 231. 

Yates, Richard. 354. 



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